


Journey into the Ages

by JayColin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Myst Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Het, Canon-Typical Violence, Cedric Diggory Lives, Established Relationship, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Language, M/M, Male Slash, Mpreg, Original Character(s), Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23499538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayColin/pseuds/JayColin
Summary: When Hogwarts becomes completely unrecognizable and unbearable under the dominion of Dolores Umbridge, four of its students manage to escape to a new world that promises them a new life and many adventures. Question is, will they ever be able to get back to their old world and help their friends and families?
Relationships: Cedric Diggory/Blaise Zabini, Cedric Diggory/Harry Potter, Cedric Diggory/Harry Potter/Roger Davies/Blaise Zabini, Harry Potter/Blaise Zabini, Roger Davies/Blaise Zabini, Roger Davies/Cedric Diggory, Roger Davies/Harry Potter
Comments: 44
Kudos: 109





	1. Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All characters and places featured in this story that relates to Harry Potter or Myst are the property of their respective authors/creators and various publishers and/or developers. I’m not profiting on this story and it is not my intent to infringe on anyone’s copyright or trademark. The only things about this story that I own are the characters and storylines not featured in the books or other media.

Journey into the Ages  
By J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Chapter One:  
Arrival

-o-0-o-

_I realized the moment I fell into the fissure, that the book would not be destroyed as I had planned. It continued falling into that starry expanse, of which I had only a fleeting glimpse. I have tried to speculate where it might have landed, but I must admit, however, such conjecture is futile. Still questions about whose hands might one day hold my Myst book are unsettling to me. I know my apprehensions might never be allayed and so I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written._

_\--- Atrus_

-o-0-o-

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

At one time it had been one of Harry’s favorite places. The first place that he’d truly thought of as home, as he’d never thought of his mother’s sister’s house on Privet Drive as home.

Now, however?

It was more like a prison. Dumbledore was gone. Fled from his office with Fawkes to avoid arrest on trumped-up charges of treason and sedition.

It made no sense. Dumbledore had refused the position when it was offered to him after Millicent Bagnold retired. And so Cornelius Fudge was put in the position instead. A man so incompetent that in the first few years of his tenure he was writing to Dumbledore sometimes as many as fifteen times a day for advice.

Maybe that’s why Fudge was so intent on the idea that Dumbledore wanted his job. Fudge delegated as much as he possibly could to be done by others and for those matters that he couldn’t delegate, he got advice from Dumbledore and then implemented the advice received exactly as he’d received it.

So, Fudge was basically a mouthpiece who spent most of his day with his feet on his desk, relaxing and listening to Celestina Warbeck on the Wizarding Wireless while other people did the work that had traditionally been done by the Minister.

Of course, when Harry and Dumbledore began insisting that Lord Voldemort had returned, Fudge finally began distancing himself. He stopped asking for advice and began implementing his own ideas.

He refused to believe that the Dark Lord had survived and he wasn’t going to allow Dumbledore to stir people to support him in taking his job. No, it was the best job he’d ever had in that he could delegate so much of it away and there was nobody who could do anything because he was at the top of the hierarchy.

Dumbledore could still cause problems, however. So he devised a plan to keep the venerable headmaster busy. It was Fudge’s hope that he’d be so busy at the school, that he wouldn’t have time for anything else.

That’s why he installed Dolores Umbridge at Hogwarts. First as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Then as Hogwarts High Inquisitor. A position he created for her, as no such position had ever existed previously in the school’s more than a thousand-year history.

And now, with Dumbledore gone, Fudge named Umbridge as the new Headmistress of Hogwarts.

It was this reason that had made Harry start to hate Hogwarts. Why it was beginning to remind him more of a prison than the home he’d come to love over the short span that he’d known of it.

He wasn’t alone in his feelings. He was certain that many others agreed with him. Of course, he didn’t know if his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, did. From everything he knew of them, he was sure that they’d chafe under the new restrictions put in place by Umbridge after the disbandment of Dumbledore’s Army.

The group that Dumbledore himself, despite taking credit for, had had absolutely nothing to do with.

One of those restrictions was that Harry was no longer allowed to see his friends. The only people that Harry had seen for the last two weeks since Dumbledore’s flight were Slytherin Blaise Zabini, Ravenclaw Roger Davies, and Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory.

Of course, Harry was sure that if Umbridge had been aware of the fact that Harry and Cedric had become romantically involved or that he’d had sex with Blaise and Roger on several occasions, she would not have assigned them to his work group.

That was one of Umbridge’s most recent alterations to daily life at Hogwarts. Students were separated into groups of four. One student from each house who they spent twenty-three hours a day with in different sections of the expansive castle. Set to do whatever menial tasks that Umbridge decided to set them.

The house-elves provided food and each group was allowed outside for fresh air and sunlight for one hour a day. But other than that, their contact outside of their groups was non-existent. Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad would check on the groups occasionally, but usually only once a day when it was time for the students to be allowed outside for an hour.

There were simply too many groups scattered throughout the building for observation any closer than that.

So what task was set to Harry and his group? It was daunting and something that would no doubt take ages to complete.

One of the side effects that had resulted in Umbridge finding the Room of Requirement was the revelation that the Room of Hidden Things, as the house-elves who served them meals called it, was not actually a room manifested by the Room of Requirement. It was actually its own separate room… it was just inaccessible from the rest of the school unless the Room of Requirement provided the link.

It was in the Room of Hidden Things that Harry’s group had spent the majority of the last two weeks. The house-elves provided their meals and the room did possess a full bathroom, with sink, toilet, and bathtub. Dobby still responded to Harry’s calls and would often provide the boys with a few extra snacks if they asked.

And their task? Catalog the contents of the room. A truly daunting task. Just the books alone would probably take fifty years or more, considering how many thousands of them there were.

Harry was working on a pile of them along with Roger. Perhaps unsurprisingly, due to being a Ravenclaw, the books were something that interested Roger more than the others. Although due to the sheer number of them, they tended to alternate which of them would assist Roger each day in going through them. Today it happened to be Harry’s day.

About five feet away, Cedric and Blaise were sorting through a mass of old trunks. Some were full of old clothes that harkened back to the early medieval era. Others were full of old hats. There were even a few that were full of jewels. A fortune that would no doubt be of great interest to the goblins.

But rather useless to Harry and the others, given their present circumstances.

Harry had just finished cataloging an extremely dry and boring treatise on the mating habits of slugs when he stretched and sighed as he picked up yet another book. He hoped this one would be mildly more interesting.

The first thing he noticed was the word ‘Myst’ emblazoned on the front cover. His first thought was that the word was clearly misspelled.

Of course, he knew from other books that he’d cataloged that it wasn’t uncommon in some older books for the letter ‘I’ to be replaced with the letter ‘Y’.

One of the most recent examples of this that he’d come across in his cataloging was a copy of ‘The Vampyre’ by John Polidori. Every dictionary and lexicon that Harry had ever seen would say that it should be spelled as vampire. The same could be said for the word mist.

There was no writing other than that one word on the front cover and flipping it over, Harry could see that the same held true for the back. Knowing that Umbridge would expect a detailed listing of each book, he sighed and opened the book to see if he could discover who it was written by and what it was about.

Of course, no sooner did he open the book was he met with something he didn’t expect. Something which he hadn’t seen in any of the other books that he’d cataloged thus far.

Emblazoned on the first page of the book was a small rectangular window that had a moving picture in it. As a wizard, he was accustomed to moving pictures, but this one seemed different somehow.

As he watched, the picture did a flyover of what looked like a vast ocean, before on island came into view through the mist. He could see buildings erected on it. The image finally stopped on a dock beside a sunken ship.

“Curious,” Harry said, making Roger look up, even as Harry reached out and laid his fingers on the image on the page.

He knew the moment he did it that he’d done something that he probably shouldn’t have done. A feeling similar to portkey travel suddenly washed over him and in an instant, he was gone from Hogwarts.

“Harry!” Roger exclaimed as he watched his lover disappear from the room.

This drew Cedric’s and Blaise’s attention as they both looked up to where Harry and Roger were sitting. Only now they could only see Roger. There was no sign of Harry.

“Where’s Harry?” Cedric asked, as he came over, thinking at first that maybe he’d walked behind one of the huge stacks of books, some of which towered over their heads by several feet.

Shaking his head, Roger said, “I don’t know. He was there a moment ago and then he touched the picture in that book and he just faded away.”

As he said this, Roger got up, picked up the book and examined it more closely. He refrained from touching the picture, however, as he turned the page and looked at the writing on the next page.

His eyes widened by what he saw. He recognized the script. They’d begun learning it in Ancient Runes at the beginning of the school year. Before Umbridge decided to give up any semblance of Hogwarts still being a school, cancel all classes, and fire all of the professors.

The professors were still in the building, as Umbridge didn’t trust them not to try to find Dumbledore or rally support against her, Fudge, and the Ministry. They were just prevented from teaching. And were segregated the same way that the students were. Except that the professors were kept in even smaller groups of two instead of four.

“This is D’ni,” Roger asked.

“Who or what is a D’ni?” Blaise asked. He was taking Ancient Runes, the same as Roger. Of the four them, the only one in the room that hadn’t been taking it was Harry. Of course, Blaise was only a fifth year and Professor Babbling didn’t start covering D’ni until seventh year.

“They’re an ancient race,” Cedric said, as he recalled his own lessons. “Believed to be magical or at least semi-magical. None of the accounts that I’ve ever read spoke of them being able to cast spells as we can. However, they were known for what they called The Art.”

“What’s that?”

“The Art is the act of writing books,” Roger answered. “But not just any book. They could write books which linked to what they called ages. That is other worlds. From what I’ve read, they had two types of books. Descriptive books which created the initial link to an age, by describing the details of the world. There was never more than one descriptive book for an age. There could, however, be multiple linking books, which could be more widely distributed, giving more people access to the age that was created.”

Cedric nodded. “The descriptive books tended to be very large and cumbersome volumes that nobody would want to have to carry around. The linking books were thinner, lighter, and far more portable.” He paused here and then asked, “You think this is a linking book?”

Roger nodded. “Yes, I think it links to an age called Myst and that’s where Harry is now. Unfortunately, unless he finds a linking book there that will bring him back here, he’s stuck there, potentially alone, as I have no idea if this Myst is populated.”

“I don’t know about you two,” Blaise said, “but I’d really rather not have to try to explain any of this and Harry’s absence to Umbridge.”

“True,” Roger said. “Of course, this could be our chance to escape and finally get out from Umbridge’s thumb.”

“Can we take this linking book with us when we go?” Blaise asked. “I ask since it stayed here when Harry left. It won’t be much of an escape if Umbridge finds it and follows us. She’s already poisoned this world. It would be a shame to let her poison another.”

“What about everybody else in the castle?” Cedric asked. “It’s not really fair for us to escape to a new world and leave them all behind with Umbridge.”

“Perhaps not, but the fact that this book is here,” Roger said, “would suggest that the D’ni obviously had a way of getting here. So, maybe we can go to this Myst and find a way to help the others. It’d be better than staying here, however. And we can’t do anything to help them now.”

“True,” Cedric said. “Well, we should take some things with us then. The food and drinks we’ve got, our spare clothes and our camping equipment,” as he said this he motioned towards their camp.

Umbridge didn’t even allow them proper beds. Instead, they were all sleeping on the floor in makeshift bedrolls.

“Okay, Blaise, start packing up the food,” Roger said. “Cedric pack up our camp and I’ll pack up our clothes.”

Blaise and Cedric nodded as the three boys set to work.

-o-0-o-

Meanwhile, Harry found himself standing alone on the dock he’d seen in the picture in the book. He realized that the book was clearly some kind of portkey, although unlike every other portkey he’d ever used, it didn’t come with him when he’d used it.

“Oh shit,” Harry said. “That means I might be trapped here… wherever here is.”

Looking around, he could see that he was standing on a small dock. To his right was a sunken ship, only the crow’s nest, several ropes, and a couple of the masts were above water. Looking down over the edge of the dock, Harry could see the rest of the ship under the water.

Straight ahead at the end of the dock, he could see a podium with some kind of lever on it, along with two sets of stairs leading up. The second led to the top of a small plateau surrounded by a railing. Beyond that, there was a giant gear coming out of the ground.

Turning to his left, he saw an alcove in the side of the small cliff of grass and moss-covered stone that the first set of stairs led up to. There was what looked like a sheet of bent metal in the alcove. Moving a bit closer to it he realized that it was a door, as it slid open to reveal a dark tunnel beyond.

“Well, there’s nothing for it. If I’m going to figure out where I am, I’m gonna have to explore. And I’m a Gryffindor. So come on, Harry, suck it up, be brave, hope there’s nothing in there that’s gonna want to kill you.”

Pulling out his wand, momentarily wondering if his magic would even work here, he muttered, “ ** _Lumos._** ”

He was pleased to see when his wand tip lit up and provided him with some extra light.

“Well, at least I still have my magic. Would suck to lose that.”

Entering the tunnel he found stairs moving down underground. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he found himself in a large circular room with a large round basin full of shimmering water.

Seeing what looked like a button on the side of the pool, Harry knelt down slightly and pushed it. He jumped slightly when he heard some sort of sound that he couldn’t identify. Looking at the pool, however, he realized that the water had disappeared.

Under where the water had been there was a grid with knobs. He wasn’t sure what it was. Pushing the button again, the grid disappeared and the water came back.

“Huh, its some sort of holographic imager. Cool.”

Moving around the room, he spotted a second, identical button to the first on the opposite side of the pool, although pressing it did nothing. He did, however, spy what looked like a note affixed to the wall next to the stairs.

“Let’s see here. Settings – Dimensional Imager. Topographical Extrusion Test… 40. Marker Switch Diagram… 47. And Water Turbulent Pool… 67. It must currently be set to that last one.”

Spotting a blinking green button near the top left corner of the note, Harry reached up and pressed it. A mechanical whirring noise sounded, as the entire panel that the note was on rolled up to reveal a panel with two screens that said 6 and 7. Beneath the screens were two pairs of up and down arrows. There was also another red button in the bottom right corner.

Switching the numbers to 40 and pressing the red button, he turned around and pressing the button again, a topographical map of the island he’d seen on the flyover on the book appeared. Only without any of the buildings he’d seen on it. Which made sense, since this was just a projection of topography.

Going back over to the control panel, Harry switched it to 47. This time it projected an image of the pedestal with the lever on top that he’d seen at the end of the dock.

“Well, I guess that must be a marker switch. Whatever that is.”

Since it didn’t seem as though there was anything else he could do in the room, he moved over to the stairs and headed back up to the dock, extinguishing his wand as he moved back out into the sunlight.

He couldn’t help but spend a few moments leaning against the edge of the alcove containing the door to the underground chamber just enjoying the sun and the fresh sea air. Spending twenty-three hours a day locked inside the Room of Hidden Things was not fun.

Sure, he had his boyfriend and two lovers to talk to. And they had sex every other night or so. But it was still not the same as being out in the open. Even for that one hour a day that they were allowed out, Umbridge or the Inquisitorial Squad—which now consisted of a group of corrupt Aurors from the Ministry as Umbridge had betrayed and imprisoned all of the former student members—only led them to the nearest exit from the castle.

For Harry’s group, this had been a large balcony on the side of one of the towers on the seventh floor of the castle. Running from their guards wasn’t really an option as the only way to escape was to run through the halls of Hogwarts, where they’d surely be caught, or to jump from the balcony, where the fall would most likely kill them.

They were all allowed to keep their wands while actually in the Room of Hidden Things, as depriving them of their magic for twenty-three hours a day was a step too far even for Umbridge apparently.

Their wands were confiscated before they left the room, however, so they couldn’t use magic to aid their escape. Their wrists were also kept tightly bound together by iron manacles, while heavy iron chains were placed around their waists and ankles, binding the four of them together.

Harry sighed. “Well, I’m free from Umbridge, although now it seems that I’m all alone here on this strange island. Away from Cedric, Blaise, Roger, all my friends… I’m not sure which is worse.”

Feeling tears threatening to fall, he wiped his eyes, pushed away from the edge of the alcove and moved further down the dock. He wasn’t sure what they did yet, but he flipped up the lever on the marker switch as he passed.

Going up the second set of stairs towards the giant gear, he found another marker switch, which he flipped up, before heading back down to the stone walkway above the docks. Seeing another short staircase that led up to the path that ran in front of the two buildings that he could see, he headed that way.

It was as he came to the top of the stairs that he noticed a note lying on the grass next to the path. Bending down to pick it up, he read it.

> _**Catherine,** _
> 
> _**I’ve left for you a message of utmost importance in our fore-chamber beside the dock. Enter the number of Marker Switches on this island into the imager to retrieve this message.** _
> 
> _**Yours,** _  
>  _**Atrus** _

Pocketing the note and musing on the fact that it somehow had not been blown away by the breeze coming off the ocean, Harry said, “Hmm. There were clearly at least two people on this island at some point. I guess I should make note of the number of these marker switches. I know there’s at least two.”

Looking up and spotting another one next to a nearby building, he added, “Well, make that three.”

Before he could progress any further, he was startled, but not at all upset, when a very familiar voice called out, “Harry? Harry, where are you?!”

Turning around, Harry smiled brightly as he saw Cedric standing on the dock. Moving quickly down the stairs, Harry jumped down from the stone walkway above the dock and grabbed Cedric in a bear hug, before sealing their lips together in a kiss.

For his part, Cedric just wrapped his arms around his boyfriend and returned the kiss, very happy to see that Harry was okay.

As their kiss finally ended, Cedric said, “Oh Harry am I glad to see you. I was so worried when you disappeared.”

“I’m glad to see you, Ric. Not sure where we are, but I guess anywhere is better than Hogwarts right now.”

Cedric grinned. “Very true. As for where we’re in another world.”

At Harry’s confused look, Cedric laughed and said, “I’ll explain more fully, but Roger and I think this world is called Myst, as you remember from the cover of the book that you found. It’s an artifact of the D’ni… an ancient race that you’d learn about in seventh year if you’d taken Ancient Runes.”

“Ah, okay. Well, I look forward to hearing what you know then.”

“It’s not much. Beyond a few basics which are thought by some to be nothing more than a fairy tale, about the only thing I do know is the D’ni alphabet and numerals. Still, I guess that’s better than nothing.”

Harry simply nodded, as he and Cedric walked over to the stairs off the dock. Harry’s hand was in the right rear pocket of Cedric’s trousers—the one furthest away from where Harry was standing to Cedric’s left—while Cedric rested his left forearm on Harry’s left shoulder.

“So what’s that thing?” Cedric asked as they walked past the dock’s marker switch.

“Apparently it’s called a marker switch. I don’t know what it does yet, but I’ve seen three of them on the island so far. And I found this note.”

Pulling the note from his pocket he showed it to Cedric as they sat down on the steps.

“Huh, well, I guess we’ll have to keep an eye out for these switches and how many of them there are. I know this message that Atrus is talking about isn’t really meant for us, but it might give us some useful clues about this place.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” After a moment’s pause, he asked, “So are the others coming?”

Before Cedric could answer, Blaise appeared out of thin air further down the docks where first Harry and then Cedric had appeared. Seeing them, Blaise smiled and moved closer, as Roger appeared a moment later, his hand inside the messenger bag he had slung over his shoulder.

As Roger joined the others, Blaise asked, “So, was our hypothesis correct?”

Roger nodded. “Yup,” as he pulled the book that had brought them all to Myst out of the bag at his side. “Apparently as long as it was in the messenger bag that I was wearing, it came with me when I used it.”

“Cool,” Blaise said. “Well, as long as there isn’t another copy of that book in the Room of Hidden Things, at least we know we don’t have to worry about Umbitch and her Inquisijerks showing up.”

“Thank Merlin,” all four of them said in unison.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there’s Ch1 of ‘Journey into the Ages’. Yeah, I wasn’t really expecting to write another new story, but the idea for this came to me because due to a graphics card issue, most of my computer games won’t run. Well, at least the more recent ones. I did manage to get my old copy of the original 1993 version of Myst to work, so between that and watching a few Let’s Plays on YouTube, I got the idea for this story.
> 
> This will be an alternate universe, as there will very likely be a few places on Myst Island that do not appear in the game.
> 
> Such as one of the things that’s no doubt confused fans for years... as in where exactly are the living quarters that Atrus and his family lived in for the roughly thirty-odd years they lived on Myst? Surely there are bedrooms, at least one bathroom, and a kitchen somewhere on the island, even if they never actually appeared in the game.
> 
> Also, I’m changing the game’s official timeline a bit. According to it, Atrus was born in the year 9411 by the D’ni calendar, which is apparently the year 1755 by the human calendar. Which means he should be long dead by 1996 when this story is set. So I’m bringing the D’ni calendar forward by 200 years, so Atrus was born in 1955, meaning he’s only 41 years old, instead of 241.
> 
> For those familiar with the Myst lore, yes, I am aware of the fact that the D'ni are a long-lived species who can live upwards of three centuries. I just don't believe that Atrus could live that long because he's more human than D'ni since both his mother and paternal grandmother are human. So he's only like a quarter D'ni, which would surely affect his lifespan and make it unlikely that he'd live as long as his D'ni ancestors.


	2. Exploring Myst

Journey into the Ages  
By J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Chapter Two:  
Exploring Myst

-o-0-o-

“Well, we’re here now,” Blaise said as he looked around. “Strange-looking place, although definitely a nice change from the Room of Hidden Things.”

As he said this, he took a deep breath of the fresh air blowing in from the ocean. With a contented sigh, he added, “Yes, definitely a nice change.”

“Indeed. Being outside, still having our wands, our wrists not clapped in iron,” Roger said. “It’s practically a dream come true.”

Cedric raised an eyebrow at this and said, “I notice that you didn’t mention the whole chained together part.”

Roger blushed slightly as he said, “Yeah, well, maybe I didn’t actually mind that.”

“I didn’t realize you were into bondage, Rog,” Harry said with a grin. “I guess we’ll have to remember that for future reference.”

As Cedric and Blaise grinned and nodded in agreement, Roger’s blush deepened, but he didn’t speak up to dispute Harry’s assertion.

Shaking his head, Harry proceeded to show the note to Blaise and Roger and then explain to them about the marker switches and how he knew what they were called.

“Interesting,” Roger said. “That must mean there are ninety-nine different possible combinations on this dimensional viewer. I suppose we could just enter all of them and see which one brings up Atrus’s message.”

“Yes, that would be one option,” Cedric said. “Although I think it would be far quicker to just count the switches because this island doesn’t seem like it’s very big, so it shouldn’t take too long to do so.”

Blaise nodded. “I’m with Cedric on this.”

“Sorry Rog, but so am I,” Harry agreed, as he gave Roger an apologetic look. “So, I say we explore and keep track of the number of them. I’ve counted three so far. The one on the dock, the one up there,” as he pointed to the plateau with the gear on it, “and the one by this first building,” as he pointed to the round building on the hill that was easily visible from where they were standing.

“Works for me,” Roger said. He honestly didn’t mind doing it the way that the others suggested.

His Ravenclaw tendencies did sometimes mean that he liked doing things the hard way to potentially learn more, but he didn’t mind taking the occasional shortcut. Besides, entering ninety-nine different combinations and checking each one… well, it would be a very tedious exercise which meant being cooped up underground.

And given how little time he’d spent outside in the last two weeks, it didn’t really appeal to him.

As a group, they moved back up to where Harry found the note and made their way over to the marker switch next to the round building, which Harry flipped up the lever of.

“Nothing seems to happen when you flip these switches,” Harry said. “So I can’t really say what they do or which position means what, but I assume we’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

Cedric and Blaise nodded, as Roger opened the door to the building they were standing next to, after which they all went in.

Inside the building, they found a large round room with a strange looking chair that Harry thought almost resembled a dentist’s chair in the center of the room.

Cedric took a seat in the chair and a moment later he said, “Huh, there’s a console I think it’s called? Harry?”

Harry grinned. Of the four of them, he was the only one who’d spent any great amount of time in the muggle world, as Cedric, Roger, and Blaise were all wizarding-raised purebloods. So, their knowledge of the muggle world was limited mostly to secondhand information.

Cedric took Muggle Studies through the end of his fifth year, although from what Harry could see, the Hogwarts Muggle Studies curriculum was kind of laughable in some of the assumptions it made about the reasoning behind certain things. It had gotten better since Charity Burbage had taken over as the professor, but it still had a long way to go in Harry’s opinion.

He hadn’t taken it, of course, but Hermione had taken it in third year before dropping it and Cedric had taken it for three years before dropping it. So, he had easy access to the textbooks and knew what was in them as a result. Honestly, he and Hermione had both had more than a few fits of laughter over them.

Sitting down on the chair with Cedric so that he was seated between his boyfriend’s legs, Harry leaned back against him. He did lean slightly to the left, however, to avoid blocking Cedric’s view, since Harry was—thanks to a healthy diet and a regimen of regular exercise and nutrition potions given to him by Madam Pomfrey all the way back in his first year—an inch taller than Cedric’s six-foot frame.

Cedric smiled as he wrapped an arm around Harry’s waist, even as Harry said, “Yes, it’s a console all right. Hmm,” as he examined it. “There appears to be a screen there, and these sliders seem to allow you to set the date. Month, day, year, and time.”

Adjusting the sliders up and down, he said, “Okay, well that’s interesting. This covers year zero all the way through year 9999.”

On a whim, Harry input his birthday, 31 July 1980, 3:45 AM, into the console—he knew the time as it appeared on his birth certificate—and then pressing the blinking green button next to the sliders.

“Well, something happened,” as the screen to the left of the button started moving before settling on an image that he could barely see.

Cedric, who was watching boyfriend’s actions, nodded and said, “Yes,” as he looked over towards the door and noticed a large button next to it. He tilted his head slightly as he thought of something before he said, “Hey Roger, close the door and Blaise, press that glowing button next to it.”

Roger and Blaise shared a look before they shrugged and did as Cedric asked. Once Roger had closed the door, Blaise pushed the button and all the lights in the room went off. Looking up at the ceiling, however, they both gasped not in shock but in awe as the ceiling was pitch black and covered with stars.

Harry smiled. “Well, I guess that answers what this building is. It’s a planetarium and this console allows you to look at various constellations that were visible in the sky at the time and date you enter into it.”

“Interesting,” Roger said. “Well, I guess we can still study Astronomy while we're here,” as unlike many students at Hogwarts who dropped Astronomy after fifth year, Roger was still taking it.

“Um, Rog, one small problem,” Blaise said. “I’m guessing that this planetarium as Harry called it shows the night sky here on Myst, not the one back on Earth. So, you can study Astronomy but I doubt you’ll be able to follow Professor Sinistra’s syllabus.”

“Hmm, yeah, you’re probably right,” Roger conceded. “Still, it could be interesting.”

“Let’s keep exploring for now,” Blaise said as he pressed the button to turn the lights back on. “We can always come back here later, as we’ve got nothing but time it seems.”

Roger nodded. “True, without Umbitch and the Inquisijerks breathing down our necks, it’s not like we’ve got anything else to do.”

As they got up from the chair, Harry and Cedric nodded, as the latter said, “We also need to explore because while we can probably set up our bedrolls in here or in the building next door if worse comes to worst and we can’t find actual beds, we’re still going to need a source of food.”

“Might be fish in the ocean that we can catch,” Harry said. “But, you’re right, we will need food cause I didn’t bring any with me.”

“We brought everything we had in the room,” Roger said. “So between our preserved leftovers from breakfast this morning and our snack stash that Dobby provided, we’ve got enough for maybe a week if we ration it and use spells to multiply it. After that, however, we’re going to have issues as what we have is going to reach the limits of preservation charms and start to spoil.”

“Yeah, we’re also going to have to find a source of freshwater,” Blaise added. “I assume the water surrounding the island is saltwater. I guess we’ll have to test that. We brought what drinks we had, including the bottles of wine and spirits we found in the room, but that’s only going to last so long.”

Harry nodded as they left the room. He knew that there were spells to conjure water, sauce, and wine, although he didn’t personally know any of them since they were NEWT material taught to sixth years. Roger and Cedric would know them, but Harry also knew that those spells were not a long-term solution to their food and drink concerns.

Being friends with Hermione Granger and shagging a seventh-year Ravenclaw—who’d been a sixth-year when they started shagging—had taught Harry lots of things that were either above his year level or things that he normally wouldn’t have bothered to memorize as well as he probably should.

One of those things was Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration and its Five Principal Exceptions, one of which stated that you can’t conjure good food or drink out of thin air.

The spell to make water, for example, had diminishing returns. It could extend the amount of time a witch or wizard could go without water by a couple of days, but beyond that, the conjured water would get progressively less useful until it finally did nothing to quench one’s thirst no matter how much of it you drank.

Hearing a bird overheard, Harry looked up and saw some birds flying. “Well, I guess we’ve also got birds that we can hunt, at least. That’ll provide food, as long as we can shoot them down over the island or close enough to the shore that we can be reasonably sure where they are and summon them.”

“True,” Blaise said before he sighed. “Of course, that does mean we’re going to have to pluck them before cooking them. I personally have never done that, as we have house-elves at home and at Hogwarts who do all the cooking.”

“We considered summoning Dobby and asking him to come with us,” Roger said. “But we weren’t actually sure if a house-elf can even use a linking book. Plus, it would have been another mouth to feed and we weren’t sure what the food situation was going to be here.”

“Probably a good idea,” Harry agreed, as he could definitely see the logic in not asking Dobby to come here. It would only stretch their supplies even further and until they found a means to replace them, they couldn’t afford to do that.

Shaking his head, Harry said, “Anyway, I actually do know how to cook, as I cooked all the time at the Dursleys. Of course, I’ve never actually had to pluck a bird to cook it, as Uncle Vernon was not the hunting type, so any fowl or poultry was bought at the supermarket and was already plucked.”

“And sadly I don’t think there’s a supermarket anywhere around here,” Cedric said with a grin.

“Seeing as we seem to be the only ones here,” Roger said, “that’s likely a good assumption since any business that opened here would be bankrupt with no customers to buy anything. Not to mention no supply chain to supply it, employees to run it, or an owner to open it in the first place.”

“Indeed,” Blaise said, as he looked around. “Seems to be another of those switches over there, next to that pool.” He paused here, before asking, “Is that a replica of the sunken ship by the dock?”

Curiosity piqued, the four teens walked closer. Cedric flipped the switch up, as Roger said, “Yeah, it certainly seems like it.”

“I wonder what all of these pillars are for,” Harry commented, as there were several of them on each side of the path, each with a different symbol on it. Shaking his head, he said, “It seems like every step I take in this place, it brings up more questions.”

“Agreed,” Blaise said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to find answers soon.”

-o-0-o-

With some more exploration, the teens found four more of the marker switches on the island. One was next to a building that led underground to a control room that held several generators. The building had power cables running from it to a pair of transformers atop a pair of tall brick towers evenly spaced between the building and a copper-colored rocket ship on the far end of the island, behind the two buildings.

They all agreed not to do anything with the generators for the time being, but Blaise who scouted out the rocket ship reported finding another switch outside what he assumed was the entrance to it that wouldn’t open.

Since there was no discernable handle or lock, Blaise didn’t attempt to use the Unlocking Charm on the ship’s door as that seemed rather pointless. They all guessed that like the door to the imager chamber next to the docks, it would open on its own. Unlike the imager chamber’s door, however, it seemed the ship’s door needed to be provided with electricity first.

They also found a clock tower at the opposite end of the island from the buildings, which was off on its own little offshore island that was shaped like a gear. It had another marker switch next to its door, but the boys decided to leave it off for the time being.

The water between the shore and the clock tower’s island looked shallow enough that they could probably walk across it. However, looks could be deceiving and they didn’t want to risk it.

Applying a bubblehead charm and sticking his head under the water, Harry reported that there were more gears underwater, which looked like they were connected to the control box on the shore which had two wheels and a button on it.

Roger deduced that it was a combination lock since turning the wheels, one was smaller than the other, changed the time on the clock face. So it would seem that entering the correct time and pressing the button would presumably the gears out of the water and make a bridge.

One other thing that Harry reported from looking under the water was that there were several sharpened spikes which couldn’t be seen under the water but made trying to swim out to the clock tower’s island inadvisable as it would be impossible to avoid getting your legs cut up on the spikes.

Blaise suggested that Roger or Cedric, who were both seventeen and knew how to apparate should just apparate over to the clock tower’s island.

Alternatively, he also suggested they just use a freezing charm to freeze the water, which did indeed turn out to be saltwater, but the other three nixed that, as they liked the idea of trying to solve the clock puzzle to get out to the clock tower’s island the way that whoever had designed this place intended.

Blaise shook his head at them wanting to do things the muggle way, but otherwise didn’t say anything or attempt to freeze the water against their wishes. He was outvoted and he had to live with them.

Besides if continued peace with his three companions wasn’t enough to convince him, his teenage hormones were. He disliked the idea of making his companions mad at him as that might endanger his prospects of being able to continue having sex with them.

And after two weeks of having it at least once every other day, he’d grown rather fond of it.

Moving on from the clock tower for the moment, they moved into the forested area of the island and found a really, really tall tree that towered over all the others by what they guessed was at least fifty to a hundred feet. Strangely, it was actually surrounded by a brick wall and rather than growing out of the ground, they noticed that it was coming out of a hole in the center of a small circular walkway made of cement.

Not seeing anything they could do with the tree, however, they moved over to a small log cabin nearby. Outside the door was the eighth and what they believed to be the final marker switch.

Curiosity about the message prevented them from looking in the cabin for the time being, so they headed back towards the docks to enter the number of switches into the imager’s control panel.

On the way through the woods, however, they came across a headstone, which they paused to examine.

> **_Here lies  
>  Ti’ana  
>  _** **__**  
>  **_Beloved Grandmother and Great-Grandmother_ **  
>  **_Writer of Myst_ **  
>  **_Born 9349 DE (1893 AD) – Died 9440 DE (1984 AD)_ **

“Interesting name,” Harry said, as the others nodded.

“I guess now we know why the year indicator in the planetarium goes all the way into the 9000s,” Roger said, as he noted the birth and death dates on the headstone. “The D’ni calendar is apparently over 7000 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar.”

“So if 9440 DE was 1984 AD,” Harry said, “then I guess that means the current year by the D’ni calendar is 9452.”

“Sounds right,” Cedric said with a nod.

“I’m assuming the runes under her name are D’ni?” Blaise asked.

Roger and Cedric both studied the headstone for a moment, although it was Cedric who spoke first. “Yes, it appears to be her name written in D’ni.”

While none of them knew this Ti’ana, out of respect for the woman who had apparently written the descriptive book that allowed them to reach Myst Island and get away from Umbridge, they all decided to observe a moment of silence, before pulling out their wands, and each conjuring a small bouquet of flowers which they left on the grave.

-o-0-o-

Entering what the note from Atrus had called the fore-chamber, the four boys made their way down. As they hadn’t been in the room previously, Cedric, Roger, and Blaise took a moment to look around, as Harry walked over to where the instructions were on the wall and pressed the button to open the control panel.

Adjusting the numbers so that the panel read 08, Harry pressed the red button and moved over to stand in front of the imager’s button nearest the stairs.

“That should do it,” Harry said. “All we have to do is press this button and we should be able to see this Atrus’s message.”

The others nodded as they gathered around next to Harry, as he leaned down slightly and pressed the button. Almost immediately the face of a middle-aged man appeared in the imager, as he immediately began speaking.

“Catherine, my love, I have to leave quickly. Something terrible has happened. It’s hard for me to believe. Most of my journals and the linking books stored in the library on the main island have been destroyed. Catherine, it’s one of our sons. I suspect Achenar, but it could also be Sirrus. I’ll have to find them.”

“I’m confident that the twins are not responsible, as they’re both still on their honeymoons on Shorato. But, I suppose I—I shouldn’t leap to conclusions. Ah, I should have known not to leave my library unchecked for so long!”

Shaking his head and sighing, Atrus continued, “I’ve removed the remaining undamaged books from the library and placed them in the places of protection. You shouldn’t have to use the books until I return, but… if you’ve forgotten the access keys, remember the tower rotation. And don’t worry, Catherine, everything will be fine. I’ll see you shortly.”

As the imager deactivated, the four teens remained silent for a moment, as they digested what they’d heard.

“From that message, I’m guessing that the building next to the planetarium is the library,” Harry said. “And while I was up by the gear activating the marker switch, I did notice a circular structure on top of the mountain behind those buildings, so I’m assuming that’s the tower he’s talking about.”

Cedric nodded. “We can also deduce that Atrus and Catherine are a married couple and they apparently have four children. I’m assuming they’re all sons, as Atrus said it was one of their sons, instead of saying one of their children who destroyed his journals.”

“He didn’t name the twins, so we can’t be sure,” Blaise said. “Although personally, I wouldn’t say that Achenar or Sirrus sound like girl’s names to me, so I’m thinking they at least are boys.”

“He also said the library on the main island,” Roger pointed out. “That would suggest that this island is not the only island in this age.”

“True, but even if that is the case,” Harry said, “we currently have no way of getting there. Other than the clock tower, I didn’t see any other islands off the coast. Since we have no idea in which direction any other islands might be and we don’t know what kind of sea life might be living in the ocean—and whether or not it would see us as food—I’m going to say it would be a bad idea to try to swim to another island.”

“I agree completely,” Cedric said. “The only other potential means of transport off the island that we’ve seen is the ship, but considering that it’s sunk, that’s not going to do us much good.”

“What about linking books?” Blaise asked. “Could there be a linking book somewhere to the other island?”

Shaking his head, Roger said, “No, I doubt it. According to Professor Babbling, one of the things that are made very clear in what information we have on the D’ni and their art is that you cannot use a linking book to link to another location in the same Age.”

Cedric nodded. “While there are some similarities between linking books and portkeys, they are still very different things. So, Rog is right. Even if we did have a linking book to another location here in Myst, we couldn’t use it while we’re still in Myst, because you can’t link to an Age that you’re already in.”

“Well, I suppose if you’re going to have a limitation,” Harry said, “that one at least makes some sense.”

“Indeed,” Blaise said. “Well, shall we explore this library then? It’s the only place we haven’t explored yet, so I assume the tower is also accessible from it.”

Everyone agreed as they left the fore-chamber and headed back up toward the docks.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's Ch2 of 'Journey into the Ages'. The next chapter might take a little longer as I'm going to have to figure out what to do about certain elements of the story that were used in Myst that later got retconned out of the official canon (trap books and talking through linking panels for those of you familiar with the game).


	3. Channelwood, Part One

Journey into the Ages  
By J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Chapter Three:  
Channelwood, Part One

-o-0-o-

As they exited the fore-chamber and returned to the dock, each of them was not able to resist taking a deep breath of the fresh sea air again. It was just so refreshing to be able to come outside whenever they wanted to after being cooped up at Hogwarts for the last two weeks.

Walking towards the stairs off the dock, Harry said, “You know, Blaise, you were wrong just now.”

“About?”

“You said that the library was the only place on the island we hadn’t explored yet,” Harry said. “Forgetting that in our haste to view Atrus’s message, we didn’t actually go into that log cabin in the woods.”

“Okay, you’re right, I was wrong.”

“Should we go explore that first?” Cedric asked. “It’s not very big and then we could go to the library.”

“I’m more interested in the library personally,” Roger said.

“Big surprise for the Ravenclaw,” Blaise said in a slightly mocking tone, although he was grinning as he said it, to show that there was no malice behind his words.

Harry and Cedric laughed and even Roger chuckled after a moment, before he said, “Hey, I just love books, so sue me.”

Nobody said anything else, as they made their way to the library and entered it. Inside was an octagonal room with the floor and walls richly paneled and the domed ceiling featuring a cloudy blue sky with a chandelier hanging from the center.

Straight ahead from the entrance was a bookshelf, with two portraits on either side of it. To the left was a picture of the bookshelf and to the right a picture of the archway—there was no door on this building—they’d just entered from, seen from the perspective of facing it with your back turned to the bookcase.

To the left of the bookshelf picture, the next wall in the octagon had a sort of partially recessed display shelf holding a red-colored book, with a single red page next to it. To the left of that, between it and the entrance arch, was what appeared to be an overview map of the island. It was this that the boys decided to look at first.

“Hmm, everything we’ve seen on the island appears to be on this map,” Roger said, as he studied it. “With one exception. I wonder.”

Before anyone could say anything, Roger disappeared with a pop and as the other three looked at the map, a white outline of the clock tower appeared just off the coast where they’d seen it.

A second later, there was a pop, as Roger appeared back in the room, looked at the map and said, “Aha, I thought so. It looks like we know what the marker switches do now.”

“I thought you wanted to solve the puzzle the way it was intended,” Blaise said. “And now, you apparated out to the island instead?”

Roger shrugged. “I wanted to test my theory. Besides, we’ll still have to solve the puzzle because the door on the clock tower is still locked. Even though there’s no visible handle or lock, I did try the Unlocking Charm, but it didn’t work, suggesting that the locking mechanism is either warded against the charm or it’s too complicated of a lock for the charm to handle.”

“I’d guess the latter,” Cedric said. “If somebody was going to ward the lock to resist the Unlocking Charm, I’d think they’d also use an Anti-Apparition Jinx to make sure you can’t just apparate out to the island.”

“Good point,” Harry said. “Well, at least we’ve solved one question.”

Noticing that the indicator for what he assumed was the tower appeared to be raised as if it was a dial, he touched it and turned it. Immediately a loud noise sounding like gears turning and also like stone grating on stone could be heard. The words “Tower Rotation” also appeared briefly on the bottom of the map in the ocean under the depiction of the sunken ship, as a white line extended outward from the tower indicator.

“And that solves the question of what Atrus meant by tower rotation,” Blaise said. “What are we supposed to do with that though?”

“Atrus’s message talked about places of protection and said that if you’ve forgotten the access keys, remember the tower rotation,” Roger said. Since Harry’s hand was still on the dial, Roger added, “Harry, turn it some more so that white line moves around the map. See if that does anything.”

Harry nodded and turned the dial, noting that as the line moved over the large gear, the crow’s nest of the sunken ship, the huge tree behind the cabin, and the rocket ship the line turned red, as the tower rotated to presumably face in the direction that the line was pointing.

“Hmm, it highlights those four things,” Cedric said. “They must be the places of protection that Atrus mentioned. I’d guess if we could access the tower than we’d get some sort of clue as to how to open them. The question is, how do we access the tower?”

“Not sure,” Roger said. “We’d thought that it could be accessed through this building, but I don’t see another entry point other than the one we came through.”

“Well, the answers seem to come as we explore,” Blaise said. “So, I guess we should just keep doing that.”

The others nodded and were completely unsurprised when Roger immediately went over to the bookcase. He sighed heavily, however, upon seeing the condition of the books.

“This is a travesty,” Roger said, as he pulled a book off the shelf and noted the charred cover and opened it to see burned pages that made the book completely unreadable. “Anybody who burns a book should be beaten to within an inch of their lives. Destroying the knowledge it contained… such a waste.”

“Not sure I’d go so far as to say they should be beaten to within an inch of their lives,” Cedric said, “although I agree that some punishment is warranted.”

Placing the book he’d taken off the shelf on the floor next to him, he pulled another book off the shelf and nearly wailed as if he was in physical pain upon finding another book that was burned beyond use. He placed it on top of the first book as he pulled a third off the shelf.

“This one’s burned too,” he said, clearly distraught. “Although this one is different. I think the first two were just journals, this one, I think is a linking book.” Studying the front cover for a moment, he added, “It looks like it says Everdunes on the cover. So I’m guessing it leads to an age called that. Although with the damage I doubt it works anymore.”

Opening the book, and carefully flipping through some of the charred pages, he nodded and said, “Yup, it’s a linking book. I found a partial linking panel, although what I can see of it, less than a fourth of it, is covered in static.”

“Well, unless we find an undamaged copy,” Harry said, “we’re clearly not visiting Everdunes anytime soon.”

Cedric and Blaise nodded, even as Roger started a new pile, as he apparently decided to separate the journals from the linking books. He was happy to note that none of the books appeared to be thick enough to actually be descriptive books, as he shuddered to think what might happen if one burned the book describing an age.

He wasn’t actually sure if that would mean that the age itself would be destroyed or if just the link to it would be. Professor Babbling had given them a brief history of what was known about the D’ni, but as history wasn’t really the focus of her class, far more attention was paid to the D’ni alphabet and numerals.

Blaise moved over to help Roger sort the books, as Harry said, “Ric and I will be back. We’re just going to have a look at the cabin and we’ll let you guys know what we find.”

“Okay,” Blaise said over his shoulder. Roger remained quiet, too focused on the books to answer.

As Harry left the library with Cedric, he smiled as he slipped his hand back into the rear pocket of Cedric’s trousers.

Cedric grinned. “You love doing that, don’t you?”

“Touching your arse?” Harry asked with a grin of his own. “Of course, how couldn’t I? It’s such a gorgeous arse.”

As he said this he squeezed Cedric’s right cheek through his trousers and added, “Too bad it’s covered up.”

Cedric rolled his eyes as he repeated their earlier position as they’d walked down the dock together before Blaise and Roger arrived by placing his left forearm on Harry’s left shoulder.

“I get the distinct feeling that if you had your way, I’d never be wearing clothes.”

“Well, maybe not never,” Harry said. “As much as I’d like people to stare in awe and know what they’ll never have because it’s mine, there are certain people I’d rather didn’t see you in all your glory. And situations where I know that no clothes wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Shaking his head, Cedric leaned over and placed a quick peck on Harry’s cheek as he said, “You’re incorrigible, you know that?”

“It’s part of my charm.”

Cedric rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything because secretly he agreed but wasn’t going to give his boyfriend the satisfaction of telling him that.

After a brief walk, as the island wasn’t all that big—Cedric was sure you could walk from one side of it to the other in about five minutes or less—they arrived at the cabin. Unlike so many of the doors they’d seen on this island, this one actually had a handle.

Harry pushed down on it and realized that it was unlocked, so he pushed it open and then because he didn’t want to take his hand out of Cedric’s pocket, he turned sideways so that they could go through the door that way since it wasn’t wide enough for them to walk through it side-by-side while facing forward.

Cedric just shook his head, a grin on his face, but didn’t say anything as they walked sideways into the room and then turned forwards to look around.

Straight ahead of them from left to right, was a painted mural of the huge tree they’d found behind the cabin, what Harry recognize as a furnace, and finally a large red wheel.

“I’m guessing this has something to do with the tree out back.”

Harry nodded. “I wonder, could it be a lift of some kind? It’s clearly not planted since it seems to come up out of a hole in the cement walkway surrounding that is only just big enough for the trunk to fit through. I can’t imagine why anybody would do that unless it was supposed to be hiding something.”

“That’s possible. I mean the tower rotation line does turn red when it’s over the tree, so it may be a lift to an underground cavern that serves as the place of protection for one of the linking books.”

“If that’s true then this furnace must be the way to raise and lower the lift,” Harry said as he studied it. Pointing at the small square opening at the bottom, he said, “Although the pilot light is out. You’re closer, so turn the wheel a little.”

Reaching up and grabbing the wheel, Cedric turned it. Almost immediately a hissing sound could be heard as Harry said, “Okay turn it in the opposite direction. That must be the gas valve, but it would be best not to have that turned on if we’re going to light the pilot light.”

Reluctantly removing his hand from Cedric’s trouser pocket, giving his boyfriend’s arse one last squeeze before he did, Harry turned and saw that there was a safe by the door. Moving closer he noted that it apparently had a three-digit combination.

“I’m assuming that there’s something in the safe that would aid in lighting the pilot light,” Harry said. “Of course, I suppose if we wanted to, we wouldn’t actually need whatever is in the safe.”

“True. One quick precision cast of the Fire-Making Spell and it’s done.” Cedric paused before asking, “Should we?”

“Well, we’ve got magic, we may as well use it. It doesn’t mean we can’t still open the safe later to see what’s in it. I suppose matches or a lighter would be likely if it’s meant to light the pilot.”

Cedric nodded as he pulled out his wand, knelt down and held it in front of the small square opening that held the pilot light as he muttered, “ ** _Incendio Minimus,_** ” causing a tiny spark of flame to shoot out of his wand and light the pilot.

As Cedric stood back up and put his wand back into the forearm holster hidden up his right sleeve, Harry moved over to the red wheel and began turning it. As the gas turned on, they both could see flames igniting behind the glass window next to the pilot light opening.

It took several turns of the wheel before the psi gauge on the furnace started to move. As it went from left to the far right side of the gauge, both Harry and Cedric jumped slightly as they heard a loud noise from outside.

Moving outside and around to the back of the cabin, they could see the entire tree moving upward out of its hole.

“Yup, it’s a lift all right,” Harry said, as the tree rose and a hollowed-out section of the trunk large enough for a person to stand in became visible.

Harry and Cedric weren’t quite fast enough, however, to get to it before the tree trunk was lifted high enough that they couldn’t just step inside of it.

“I guess the pressure is a little too high.”

“Do you trust me?” Cedric asked, as he held out his arm to Harry, who grinned, nodded, and grabbed Cedric’s arm before the older teen Side-Along Apparated them into the compartment they’d seen in the tree trunk.

It was a slightly tight fit, causing them to have to stand really close together, but neither of them was about to complain about that. The tree kept going up and up and up until finally, it reached what must have been its maximum height and stopped.

“Wow,” Harry said. “What a view.”

Cedric nodded, as they looked out over the island and the ocean beyond. Chancing a glance out of the lift, he whistled as he said, “We must be like a good hundred feet above the tops of the other trees.”

“Would seem so,” Harry said. “Merlin, I wish I had my Firebolt.”

Unfortunately, while their trunks containing all of their clothes, school books, and other supplies had been moved from their dormitories to the Room of Hidden Things—Roger currently had all of them shrunken in his messenger bag—Harry’s broom was still chained up in Umbridge’s office, following his lifetime ban from playing Quidditch.

Thus, even though Roger, Blaise, and Cedric knew where it was, none of them dared risk trying to summon it so that they could bring it with them to Myst because the chains would have prevented it from coming to them without damaging it. Which was precisely why Umbridge had chained it up.

From this height, they could see much further than they could from land, so both of them scanned as much of the horizon as they could to see if they could see any other islands. After a moment, Harry pointed and said, “What’s that?”

Looking at where Harry’s finger was pointing Cedric squinted slightly and said, “It almost looks like the sun is glinting off the top of a glass dome. It’s hard to see cause the mist is pretty heavy.”

“True, but if it is a glass dome, then it would presumably be built on something, so I guess we know now which direction at least one other island is in.”

Cedric nodded. “Yes, but the question is, how do we get to it. I can only just barely see it, so apparating is out of the question as you need to be able to clearly picture your destination in your mind. I was able to get us into this compartment because I’d seen it and could picture it.”

“Well, there must be some way of getting to it. We’ll just have to wait for now, I guess. So, how do we get down from here?”

“There’s a button here,” Cedric said, as he pushed it. There was another banging noise as the tree went down a notch, before going right back up.

“Hmm, must be some sort of pressure release which lowers the tree,” Harry said. “But I’m guessing you have to keep pressing the button to get down to the ground because otherwise whatever release valve the button opens will close and the furnace replaces what pressure was released.”

“Okay, well, let’s try that,” Cedric said, as he began pressing the button several times and low and behold the tree started going down one notch at a time, each notch accompanied by a loud banging noise.

As they got closer to the ground, they could see Roger and Blaise standing at the entrance to the brick wall surrounding the base of the tree, shielding their eyes from the sun as they looked up.

“Hey guys,” Harry shouted, as the tree kept going down.

Once it reached a point where it was close enough to the ground that Harry was confident that he could jump out without hurting himself, he did so. Cedric stepping out of it about a minute later as the bottom of the lift leveled off with the ground.

Of course, as soon as Cedric was out of the tree and no longer pressing the button, it started to go back up.

“We heard a noise and came running,” Roger said. “Wow, so the tree is a lift?”

“Mmmhmm,” Harry said. “Gave us an excellent view from the top. It was hard to see through the mist surrounding this island, but we think we saw the sunlight glinting off the top of what might have been a glass dome on another island that way.”

Harry pointed behind Roger and Blaise at the side of the island that the brick building that held the stairs down to the underground chamber that had generators in it was located on.

“I’m guessing it’s about at least a mile away, however,” Cedric said. “With the mist, I couldn’t get a clear view, so apparating is out of the question, and seeing as how we still don’t know what kind of sea life might be out in the ocean, I really don’t think trying to swim there would be advisable.”

Roger nodded as he said, “Well, at least we know roughly where there’s another island. If there is a glass dome on it, it would also mean there’s probably a way to get to it. A linking book wouldn’t work unless it’s in another Age, but I’d assume there’s probably some means of getting to it here on the island as well.”

“Yes,” Blaise agreed. “One thing that’s been conspicuously absent from what I’ve seen is any form of living quarters. And since it would seem that at least seven people have lived on this island at some point—Atrus, Catherine, four children, and Ti’ana—then there must be a place for them to sleep, eat, use the toilet, etc.”

The other three nodded, before Harry said, “We think this tree must be one of the places of protection that Atrus mentioned. It’s raised via the furnace inside the cabin. Right now the pressure is clearly too high, so it keeps going up.”

“However, if we could lower the pressure so that it goes down,” Cedric said, “we think that it may very well lead to an underground room which very well might hold the linking book to another Age.”

“In that case, I think we should probably find out,” Blaise said. “We’ve explored this island and there doesn’t seem to be any food growing here or water that we can drink. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would be very happy to solve that particular issue sooner rather than later.”

“I agree,” Roger said. “As much as my inner Ravenclaw doesn’t want to leave the library, I know that food and water is going to be a major concern. If we can find sources of both, we don’t have to be as frugal with rationing what we do have.”

“Yes, and except for our breakfast leftovers,” Cedric said, “most of the snack stash is junk food. So, probably not the best thing to be living off of for a week.”

They had leftovers from breakfast because Dobby was the one who delivered all of their meals and made sure they were getting double helpings at every meal because he liked Harry. So, they tended to eat what they could and then put the leftovers under preservation charms to snack on if they got hungry before lunch was delivered.

Lunch wasn’t due to be served for another hour, roughly, when Roger linked through to Myst.

“I hope Dobby doesn’t worry about us when he finds us gone,” Harry said. He did sometimes find the praise that Dobby heaped on him to be a little annoying, but he still liked the elf.

“Since it’s always Dobby that delivers our meals,” Cedric said, “We left him a note which we told him to destroy after reading it. We told him that we found a D’ni linking book among the books and used it to escape Umbridge. We also told him where it would be if it didn’t come with us when Roger linked and asked that he destroy it if it was still there so that nobody could follow us.”

“I suppose it was a risk,” Blaise said. “If any of the other elves had delivered our food today and found the note, although we purposely didn’t name the Age the book linked to, just in case.”

“And we don’t have to worry because the book came with us,” Roger said. “So, unless there are other copies, we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone from Hogwarts following us.”

Harry nodded. He hoped it was Dobby who found the note and was happy that he wouldn’t be worried too much. Shaking his head he told the others he was going to go and reduce the pressure so that the tree would start coming back down.

The others remained by the tree and Harry was back about two minutes later, as the loud bangs as the tree lowered down sounded. Once it was within sight, Cedric said, “Okay, Rog, can you Side-Along Blaise? Harry and I will go first, use Sonorous when we’re underground to let you know we’re out of the tree and then you can bring Blaise without having to readjust the pressure to bring it back up.”

Roger indicated that yes, he could Side-Along Apparate, so once the hollowed-out section of the tree got close enough he studied every detail so that he could form a very clear picture of it in his mind.

Cedric and Harry waited until it was far enough down for them to just step into it, huddling together inside, they both had cheeky grins on their faces as they waved goodbye to Roger and Blaise before they descended down underground.

Reaching the bottom, they stepped out into an underground cavern that had large wooden beams that resembled tree trunks holding up the ceiling. Pulling out his wand and putting the tip against his throat, Harry whispered, “Sonorous,” as Cedric put his fingers in his ears, before Harry said, “Okay Roger, we’re out.”

A second later, there was a pop, as Roger and Blaise appeared inside the hollowed-out tree. Stepping out of the room as Harry canceled the Sonorous Charm, as they all moved towards the center of the room, where resting on top of a tree stump was another linking book which had ‘Channelwood’ embossed on the front cover.

Opening the book to the linking panel they could see a windmill built on top of a small rocky island jutting out of the water. As they watched they could see a huge forest of tall trees similar to the ones that were in the forest above their heads on Myst Island growing up right out of the water. They could also see what looked like a series of huts built into the treetops.

“Well, Channelwood, here we come,” Harry said as he laid his hand on the linking panel and disappeared. Cedric went next, followed by Blaise. Roger checked inside his bag to make sure that the linking book to Myst was still there before he too placed his hand on the panel and linked out.

-o-0-o-

As each of them linked in they found themselves standing on a narrow wooden bridge that was probably less than half a foot out of the water. There wasn’t even the smallest bit of land visible as far as they could see. It looked like the Age was covered in water, with the trees that towered over their heads growing up out of it.

Pulling one of the empty tin cups they’d been drinking out of from his pocket, Blaise enlarged it to its normal size before kneeling down and dipping it into the water next to the bridge. He sniffed it and when it didn’t smell bad, he cautiously raised it to his lips and sipped a small amount.

“It’s fresh,” he said after a moment. “So, it looks like at the very least we’ve got an ample supply of freshwater now.”

“Well then we must be in a huge inland lake,” Roger said, “since it seems to go on as far as I can see in every direction.”

“That solves one problem,” Harry said. “Now maybe if some of these trees grow fruit, we just might have a food source, other than any potential fish or fowl that we can get back on Myst.”

“Would certainly solve our immediate issues,” Cedric said as he noted that there were pipes attached to the wooden walkway. “I wonder what these pipes are for.”

“Let’s explore and see if we can figure that out,” Harry said, as the others nodded.

They had to walk single file, as the narrow wooden walkways were not wide enough for any of them to walk side by side. Coming to a y-shaped junction of both walkways and pipes, they noted that there was a switch on the pipes that was surrounded by a round metal surround.

Kneeling down to examine it, Harry, who was in the lead, said, “I think this switch changes the direction of the water flow, although there doesn’t currently seem to be any in the pipes.”

Walking a little further, they soon saw the rocky island with the windmill on top in the distance. It appeared just outside of the forest of trees, although the water still stretched on as far as they could see.

“Could the windmill have something to do with the pipes?” Cedric asked.

“It’s possible,” Harry said. “It might power a pump which pumps water into the pipes and then you can change the direction of the flow with the junction switches.”

By unspoken agreement, they all headed for the windmill island. Reaching it they walked up a twisted stone path up to the top of the rock, where they found both the windmill and a small wooden hut next to it. Inside the hut was a large water tank with what Harry was pretty sure was indeed a pump that was powered by the windmill.

There was a lever on the pump, although it didn’t seem to do anything.

“There’s a faucet handle at the base of the tank, Harry,” Roger said, as he pointed down at the ground, where a pipe came out of the bottom of the tank and ran down the hill they’d just walked up to get here.

Since Roger was closer, Harry nodded and said, “Well turn it and see what happens.”

Nodding, Roger bent down and turned the faucet. They could immediately hear water flowing down through the pipes.

“Well, that’s turned the water on,” Roger said. “Not sure what it does quite yet, but it’s a start.”

Harry nodded as they left the hut, with Blaise in the lead this time since there wasn’t really enough room for them to switch the order that they’d come up in. Harry wasn’t complaining, however, because bringing up the rear meant that he got to stare at Cedric’s arse, which other than kissing him or fucking him or being fucked by him (or Blaise or Roger for all three activities), was one of Harry’s favorite pastimes.

As they made their way back down the rocky island, Cedric said, “I can feel your eyes on my arse, Harry.”

“And?” Harry asked. “You can’t tell me you weren’t looking at mine on the way up.”

“Guilty,” Cedric admitted with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I know I was certainly looking at Cedric’s on the way up,” Roger said. “Just as I’m admiring Blaise’s now.”

“Fair play, since I was looking at yours as we were going the other way,” Blaise said, as he purposely wriggled his arse a bit to give Roger a little show, as they moved back towards the nearest junction point where the walkways diverged in two different directions.

Looking up and seeing all the huts in the trees, Blaise asked, “You think there’s anyone up there watching us?”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out and that’s find our way up there,” Harry said as they came to the junction nearest the windmill island.

Scanning around, he said, “It looks like there’s a staircase leading up over there, as he pointed to the right.

Blaise nodded as he took the right-hand path. As he passed the junction, Harry knelt down and flipped the switch to send the water going towards the stairs.

“The stairs are blocked by a door,” Blaise said. “And there’s a round metal thing here that’s making noise. A generator, maybe?”

“That’s what it sounds like, so I guess that must be what the waters for.”

Since this door actually did have a handle, Blaise pulled but found that it wouldn’t open. Tapping the tip of his wand on the handle, he muttered, “ ** _Alohomora,_** ” before trying the door again only to find it still locked.

“Typical,” Blaise said. “It must have a rather complicated locking mechanism beyond what the spell can handle.”

Blaise thought for a moment before he pointed his wand at the water next to the door and said, “ ** _Glacius._** ”

“That’s cheating,” Roger said, even as Blaise held out his arm and said, “I’m a wizard. You can’t expect me not to use magic. Now hold my arm, Rog, I’m going around.”

Roger did as Blaise asked, as Blaise stepped down off the walkway and onto the frozen section of the water. He then carefully positioned himself on the other side of the door and stepped up onto the platform in between it and the wooden spiral staircase that wrapped around the trunk of a large tree.

Once Blaise was on the other side, he examined the door to see if he could find a latch or something to open the door, but he couldn’t.

“You coming, Rog?”

Roger rolled his eyes as he gripped the door handle to steady himself before he leaned to one side and looked around to the other side of the door. Getting a clear mental image of the steps, Roger concentrated and disappeared with a pop, only to reappear a moment later on the stairs, two steps up from where Blaise was standing at the bottom.

“If we’re going to be here any length of time,” Blaise said, “then I really need to learn how to apparate.”

“Agreed,” Harry said.

“You guys are only fifteen,” Cedric argued.

“Both closer to sixteen than fifteen, Ric,” Harry said. “Besides I doubt I’m going to get in trouble with the Ministry for learning how to apparate without a license. Somehow I rather doubt they can detect magic in other worlds.”

“Very true,” Blaise said. “The words muggle world and wizarding world are often used to describe one or the other, but they are still technically the same world. Myst and Channelwood, however, are not since Rog and Ric you both said that D’ni linking books can’t link to different places in the same Age or world. So we’re clearly not on Earth anymore.”

“Well, you’ve got me there,” Cedric said as he repeated Roger’s action, before apparating onto the step between Blaise and Roger. “Harry, you think you can get around the door the same way Blaise did?”

“Yes,” Harry said as he pulled out his wand and refroze the water which had melted while they were talking. “Can you steady yourself and give me a hand, Blaise?”

Blaise nodded, even though he knew that Harry wouldn’t be able to see it on the other side of the door, as he steadied himself against the handle on this side of the door and then reached his arm around the other side of the door.

To provide a bit of extra support, Cedric placed his hands on Blaise’s shoulders, holding him in place, even as Harry stepped down off the walkway onto the ice and carefully moved over to the other side of the door. Before he ducked down slightly so that he could get his head under Cedric’s right arm. Stepping up onto the platform he came up between Blaise and Cedric.

Now that all of them were on this side of the door, Roger said, “Well, let’s see what’s upstairs,” before leading the way up.

As they climbed, Roger realized the issue as soon as he made the final turn around the tree and groaned. “Oh great, another locked door at the top of the stairs. And now there’s no water to freeze to aid in going around it.”

Reaching into his bag, Roger pulled out a miniature handheld telescope that he’d grabbed, shrunk, and placed in his bag on a whim before linking out of Hogwarts.

Unshrinking it and extending it he looked around for a moment before he said, “I see what looks like a switch in one of the huts that look at this stairwell. That might be what opens this door.”

Turning the spyglass so that he could get a good look at the rope bridge that led to the hut in question, he put the telescope back in his bag and said, “I’ll go see if I’m right,” before he closed his eyes, visualized, and disappeared with a pop.

The other three boys could see him although he was sufficiently far enough away to be much smaller. He entered one of the huts and a moment later, the door at the top of the stairs swung open, as all three of them heard Roger let out a whoop of triumph.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have Part One of Ch3 of ‘Journey into the Ages’. I figured this was getting fairly close to six-thousand words so I figured I’d split the chapter here and the boys will continue their exploration of Channelwood in the next chapter.
> 
> Eventually, they’ll also get back to Myst and continue exploring the library, but this gives me some more time with which to figure out what to do about the so-called trap books and talking through linking panels that the developers retconned out of the canon. Of course, this story is an alternate universe, marked with a canon divergence tag, so I suppose I don’t necessarily have to strictly follow canon.
> 
> Those of you reading this who aren’t familiar with Myst or who haven’t seen my message regarding this topic on my group probably don’t know what I’m talking about, but oh well. Everything will become clear eventually.


	4. Channelwood, Part Two

Journey into the Ages  
By J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Chapter Four:  
Channelwood, Part Two

-o-0-o-

As they emerged onto the walkways high up in the treetops, Harry said, “Well, I think I know what the generator down at the bottom is for.”

Opening the door of a lift that was right next to the stairs, he said, “I think it powers this lift which seems to go up another level.”

Looking up through the treetops, Blaise said, “Doesn’t look like there’s much up there. Looks like maybe only three huts, compared to down here where there’s quite a few more.”

“It looks like we might be losing daylight soon,” Roger said, as he looked over and saw the sun slowly moving down on the horizon. Looking at his watch, he added, “It’s only three pm back home, but I suppose this being another world, it makes sense that it wouldn’t be on the same day and night cycle.”

Cedric nodded and said, “Well, I say we explore as much of these huts as we can and then maybe go up to that hut up there,” he motioned towards a lone hut nestled in the trees about twenty or thirty feet behind the lift.

“That works,” Blaise agreed. “Maybe we should split up, we can cover more ground that way.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Harry said. “We’ve each got our wands so we’ve got light. Meet back here in say thirty minutes? Or whenever it gets too dark to continue exploring, whichever comes first?”

“Sounds good,” Roger said as the others nodded and they each headed off in different directions.

-o-0-o-

Thirty minutes later, they’d all made their way back just as the sun dropped down below the horizon for the night. None of them reported seeing any signs of anyone living in any of the huts they’d explored. In fact, they all seemed to be abandoned.

They each reported finding at least one hut that had some type of broken furniture in it and Harry was pretty sure he’d seen bloodstains in one of them but didn’t investigate too closely as it was getting dark and he wanted to get back to the meeting point.

They’d each found some intact pottery vessels with lids that were still in good condition, which they’d shrunk and put in their pockets to bring with them. With some cleaning and disinfectant charms—and maybe a preservation ward—they’d be a good place to store food.

Speaking of, they did each find some wild fruits and nuts which they couldn’t identify. There was a spell, however, taught by Professor Sprout in first-year Herbology which could be used to determine whether or not a plant was edible and non-poisonous.

While they couldn’t identify the fruits and nuts they’d found because they didn’t look like anything they’d seen on Earth, the spell did identify them as non-poisonous and edible. They left them alone for the moment since they figured that harvesting them would be easier in the daytime than at night when they could barely see them.

Of course, they knew that the darkening sky might also be contributing to their inability to identify some of the plants. Especially those that grew just out of reach of the rope bridges, so lighting them up with their wand lights was difficult. Come morning they were confident they’d be able to summon them, however.

Making their way back to the lift, they rode up one by one as they weren’t sure if the water-powered generator or cables that held up the lift could handle their combined weight. Besides, it would have been a very tight fit for more than two of them to get in it at the same time.

They briefly wondered if the hut they’d decided to visit on the second treetop level was inhabited as they could see lights on inside. However, when there was no answer to a knock on the door, Roger tried the handle and found it unlocked. Cautiously opening the door they found a very nicely appointed room.

There was no sign of anybody in the hut, however, and a plate of moldy, rotten cheese on one of the tables which Roger vanished with a grimace suggested that the room hadn’t been occupied recently.

“This is the first sign of habitation we’ve actually seen,” Blaise said, as he looked around the room. “It’s actually very nice for a treehouse.”

“Yes,” Harry said as he walked over to the bed and ran a hand over the bedspread almost lovingly. “A bed. I can’t even tell you how much I’ve missed sleeping in one.”

“Very true,” Cedric said as he came up behind his boyfriend and wrapped his arms around his waist. “Thanks to some cushioning charms our bedrolls are okay, but an actual bed… after two weeks sleeping on the floor, that looks really good.”

“I suppose we could stay here,” Roger said. “From what we’ve seen this whole tree village if you want to call it that is abandoned and guessing from the moldy cheese I vanished, I’m guessing it has been for weeks, if not months.”

Blaise nodded. “Until we find the living quarters on Myst, this would be a workable option. The bed is a bit small for four people,” he paused here and grinned before adding, “although I suppose since we are lovers, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Pulling out his wand, Cedric tapped the bed with it a few times as he muttered a spell under his breath which had no visible effect. Roger grinned as he could guess what Cedric did, but the other two looked curious.

“A bit of NEWT-level casting,” Cedric revealed. “You’ve probably heard of it before: wizard space.”

“That works on furniture?” Harry asked.

“Yup,” Roger said. “There are limits, but in this case, the bed can actually be made larger without it appearing to be larger or taking up any more additional space.”

“Cool,” Harry said, as Blaise nodded and said, “Hmm, there’s a sink here,” he paused and tried the faucet before adding, “and it has running water. Cold, but that’s easily remedied with magic.”

“Seems the only thing this place is missing is a toilet.”

Looking out the window that was above the table that the plate of moldy cheese had been on, Roger saw what looked like a small room jutting out off of the hut.

“Actually, there might be one,” he said, as he came over and examined the wall near the sink.

At first glance, there didn’t appear to be a door, but running his fingers along the edge of the wainscoting, it became apparent that looks could be deceiving.

“Aha,” Roger said, as he found a hidden latch. Pushing it made the slightly recessed wall paneling on the wall to the right of the sink split down the middle, as the two sides receded backward another inch or two before sliding open, revealing a room beyond.

Stepping inside the small room, Roger found an old-style toilet with a pull chain and a claw-foot bathtub. A pair of lights similar to what was in the hut’s main room lit the small room, along with a glass window above the bathtub.

Normally, Roger wouldn’t really have been a big fan of having a window above the bathtub, but he supposed that since they were about sixty feet in the air and there were no other huts nearby, he didn’t really have to worry about anyone seeing him naked as he got in and out of the tub.

“We’ve got a bathroom,” Roger said, as he pulled the chain and was pleased to see the toilet flush. He wasn’t exactly sure where it would end up going, but as long as it worked, that was the important bit.

Unlike the sink, the bathtub didn’t have a faucet, so he assumed that whoever had lived here had used a bucket or something to fill the tub from the sink. He wasn’t sure how they would have heated it, unless they liked cold baths, but with magic that wasn’t an issue.

Sitting down on the bed and finding it pleasingly comfortable, Harry looked out the window above the small writing desk to the left of the bed.

“It looks like there’s another small room on this side of the room too,” he said, as he could see a structure jutting out from the side of the hut.

Looking out the window and seeing what Harry was referring to, Cedric walked over to the corner of the room. Pulling out his wand, he first cast the repairing charm on the broken chairs that littered the corner of the room, before running his fingers along the edge of the wainscoting as Roger had on the other side of the room.

Finding a hidden latch and pushing it, the wall split open the same as it had for the bathroom, as the two halves slid open.

Beyond them was a small room that from the smell was clearly cedar-lined and held a collection of clothes which upon closer inspection, Cedric determined to be men’s clothes that were richly designed in fine silks, velvets, and brocades. There was also a collection of finely crafted leather footwear on the floor, ten pairs by Cedric’s count. Four pairs were shoes and the rest were boots.

“And we have a small walk-in closet on this side of the room,” Cedric said. “Lined in cedar and filled with fancy men’s clothes and footwear.”

There was also a full-length mirror in the room and a highboy dresser that matched the other furniture in the main room. Opening some of the drawers, Cedric found more clothes, including socks, underwear, and folded silk shirts.

Opening the three small drawers at the top of the dresser, Cedric found one was completely full of gold and silver coins, another held loose pearls and gems, and the last one held a collection of men’s rings in gold and silver with various gemstones. One of the large rings made of gold with a large ruby had a golden letter ‘S’ in a fancy calligraphic script over the ruby.

Taking the ring, Cedric emerged from the closet and held up the ring for the others could see, as he said, “Well, assuming the twins that Atrus mentioned in his message don’t have names starting with ‘S’, then I’m guessing this hut belonged to Atrus’s son Sirrus.”

“Looks like that could well be a fair assumption,” Blaise said as he looked at the ring. “At least until we find out the twins’ names.”

Coming out of the bathroom, Roger spied the collection of corked bottles. There were two on the same table the cheese had been, plus three more standing on the headboard of the bed, and three on the floor between the bed and the desk. The labels indicated them to be wine.

“All of these bottles appear to be empty,” Roger said. “But, since the water on this Age is fresh, we can clean them with magic and then fill them with water that we can take with us back to Myst.”

Blaise nodded. “Good idea.”

The four of them fell silent at this point, as Blaise removed the four shrunken containers that held their breakfast leftovers from his pocket, placed them on the desk, and enlarged them.

Taking the container with his name on it he sat down and began eating since he was getting hungry considering that they’d missed lunch. The other three followed suit grabbing their own leftovers and eating.

Once they’d all eaten, Blaise yawned and said, “I know it’s still pretty early back home, but I think a combination of it being dark outside and this bed just looking so inviting, I’m getting tired.”

The others indicated that they were as well and that a nap would be really nice right about now.

Pulling out his wand, Harry cast a Locking Charm on the door leading into the hut, which sealed shut with the telltale squelching noise. They hadn’t seen anyone the entire time they’d been here and the hut seemed like it hadn’t been visited in a long time, but if they were all going to take a nap, then he’d feel safer knowing that nobody could come in.

With the door locked, all four boys stripped down to their underwear, before crawling into the magically expanded bed, finding that the wizard space did indeed allow them to spread out and have more room than what the bed would appear to provide. It didn’t take long before all four of them were sound asleep.

-o-0-o-

Around three hours later, Roger awoke to find the other three still sound asleep. Since he was lying on the side of the bed that didn’t face the wall, he carefully got up so as to not wake the others and got dressed.

He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought that while he’d been sorting the books in the library on Myst, he’d come across a journal that talked about Channelwood before he and Blaise had run out of the library to investigate the loud noise coming from the other end of the island.

Since the others were sleeping, he pulled a blank piece of parchment from his messenger bag along with one of his ever-fill eagle feather quills and wrote the others a note, which he put on the desk next to the bed. With that task finished, he slid his hand back into his messenger bag and touched the linking panel in the Myst book to head back and see if he was right.

Entering the library, he found the book he was looking for before apparating to the Channelwood book room and linking back. Once he was back in the age, he didn’t even have to bother with the stairs or the lift because he could picture the hut and just apparated in.

It was the slight pop that woke Harry, who rolled over to investigate, sleepily asking, “Rog?”

“Hey Harry,” Roger said. “Go back to sleep if you’re still tired.”

“Where were you just now?”

“I went back to Myst for a few minutes. I thought I saw a journal while I was sorting through the books about Channelwood." Pulling said book from inside his bag he smiled and said, “And I was right. Figured this might give us some insight into this age.”

Harry was more awake now and didn’t feel tired, so he sat up in bed and said. “Cool. It’d be nice to know more about this age.”

Roger nodded as he sat down in one of the chairs that Cedric had repaired earlier and prepared to read. Before he could, however, Harry, who was still only his underwear, came over and took a seat on Roger’s lap, cuddling up against him so that he could see the journal too.

“Um, Harry, I’m not going to be able to concentrate on reading with you dressed like that.”

Harry grinned. “Dressed like what?”

Roger raised an eyebrow, as he motioned at Harry’s nearly naked body. The only thing the fifteen-year-old was wearing currently where a pair of black boxer-briefs with a red waistband.

“You’re practically naked, Harry. And what you’re wearing leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination as I can clearly see your package. It’s distracting.”

Deciding to be mischievous, Harry wriggled his arse, which made Roger groan as he said, “Okay and that’s definitely not helping.”

“You can’t multi-task?”

“Of course, I can,” Roger answered. “I’m a Ravenclaw. We tend to be studious and good at multi-tasking, especially around exam time. However, I’m also not a prude. You honestly expect me to be able to concentrate on reading while my nearly naked lover is sitting on my lap and wriggling his arse on my cock?”

Shaking his head, Roger added, “I’d have to be dead or a eunuch for that to not be distracting as hell.”

“Harry, stop being a teasing brat,” Cedric said from across the room, where he was still in bed with Blaise.

“Either get dressed or come back to bed,” Blaise added.

“Better yet, get undressed and come back to bed,” Cedric said as he wriggled around under the covers for a moment before he threw his underwear in Roger’s and Harry’s direction.

A second later, Blaise’s underwear followed suit, prompting Harry and Roger to look at each other for a moment, before Roger put the Channelwood journal aside, as Harry stood up, pushed down his underwear and practically ran across the room to the bed. Roger hot on his heels as he stripped out of his clothes.

-o-0-o-

Nearly two hours later, the four boys finally got out of bed, took turns using the toilet, and then got dressed as Roger sat down and picked up the journal.

“Read it aloud, so we can all hear it,” Blaise said. “I think we’d all like to know more about this place. And it’s quicker for you to just read it to us then for each of us to read it in turns.”

Roger nodded as he settled down and began to read.

**_I have called this age Channelwood and it is a very distinctive world, unlike any I have visited previously. Though it is precisely as I had imagined it, it is still fascinating to see it with my own eyes. Water covers it as far as I can see except for a small rock of an island._ **

**_Elsewhere, there are only trees, which grow directly out of the water. A multitude of slender wooden walkways are built just above the water and disappear into the forest. I estimate they were built some time ago for they appear weathered and worn. I am keen to discover more about this land and its inhabitants, but I have arrived here late and I must rest._ **

**_I was roused from my sleep this morning by unusual noises emanating from a pathway neighboring the one on which I had slept. Following the sound, I saw a band of monkey-like people heading in my direction. They had not seen me yet, although something about their demeanor did not leave me feeling threatened by their presence._ **

**_Their response upon noticing me was one that I would never have expected. After silently staring at me for a short time, they fell to their knees and began what appeared to be some form of ceremonial worship. I tried to speak to them, but they did not understand English, D’ni, or any other language I was familiar with. Through a series of enthusiastic hand signals, they seemed to be indicating that I should follow them._ **

**_As we walked, I began to notice that the water was changing colors. In a gradual and subtle change that I almost missed, they went from deep blue to muddy orange and then to beautifully clear. I was so captivated by the water I barely noticed that the inhabitants had led me to a rope ladder._ **

**_Climbing it led us up to their village located about ten meters above the water and can only be reached by one of the many similar ladders that reach down from their village approximately halfway up the incredibly tall trees of this age._ **

**_Once we’d arrived in the village, they left me to my own devices for a time, as they went about their lives. I’ve found it fascinating watching these people, as they carried out their daily tasks. After several hours of observing them, I feel that I still do not fully understand what they were doing or why._ **

**_As the sun began setting, they again returned their attention to me, as they motioned once again for me to follow them. The creatures led me to the entrance to an enormous hut, which I must admit was rather strange, as it seemed to be larger on the inside than on the outside._ **

“Now that’s interesting,” Cedric said, as Roger paused in his reading. “That almost sounds like wizard space.”

“Yes, it does,” Blaise agreed. “I can imagine the shock and outrage of many of the pureblood supremacists back home at the very idea of a non-human monkey-like species being able to use magic.”

Harry nodded. “They do tend to see themselves as superior to every other magical race. As evidenced by the Fountain of Magical Brethren at the Ministry, where all the other magical races are gazing adoringly at the witch and wizard in the center.”

“Despite all evidence to the contrary that many other magical races do not look at witches and wizards that way,” Roger said before he resumed reading.

**_The walls were adorned with bright metals and in the center of the room sat who I can only assume was the leader of these people, since he sat in a throne a meter off the floor. Guards surrounded the throne, whose occupant was dressed in many exotic and colorful fabrics._ **

**_Next to the leader, sat a very old man who appeared far more human-like than all the others in the room, save for myself. Unlike the others who were covered in hair from head to toe, this man only had hair on his head and face, which was graying white and hung very long around his frail body. His head hung limply against his chest, as due to his advanced age, he no longer seemed capable of lifting his head to look at me or anyone else._ **

**_I was surprised to learn that the old man could speak English. I wasn’t given long to converse with him, however much I may have wished to do so. As it wasn’t long before I was provided with a bed and the monkey-like creatures appeared with their hand gestures to be telling me to go to sleep. It’s been a long day and I am rather tired, but I look forward to learning more tomorrow._ **

**_As I suspected last evening, the old man is indeed human, although he’s reached the point of being so old that even he doesn’t know how old he is. His age also seems to have driven him nearly insane. The tree-dwellers, however, appear to revere him as though he was a god and much to my discomfort, they now seem intent to treat me the same way._ **

“The supremacists would love that,” Blaise said, with a disgusted shake of his head. “They’d feel it was only right and proper for them to be revered. Discomfort is the very last thing they’d feel from such treatment.”

Cedric, Harry, and Roger nodded in agreement, as Roger continued.

**_While this man does speak English, I must admit a combination of his dialect and his feeble voice does sometimes make it hard to understand what he’s saying. Of course, he appears to be aware of the difficulties, as he said it’s been many years since he’s had to speak our tongue._ **

**_Despite the issues, he did his best to share with me the history of this age, which I have tried to record here as best I can from what I was able to glean from the old man’s broken and weak speech._ **

**_It would seem that many years ago the humans and tree-dwellers both called this age home when it was a vast island. They had little contact with one another, as the humans stayed on the ground and the tree-dwellers stayed up in the trees, high above._ **

**_It seems that the island was once plagued by occasional rumblings which I suspect was some form of tectonic or volcanic activity. These tremors, sometimes minor and other times not so, never seemed to last for very long. Usually stopping almost as soon as they started, allowing life to go back to normal as though nothing had happened._ **

**_This apparently changed one day, however, when they began anew and grew quickly to previously unheard-of levels. It soon became obvious that the entire island was sinking into the water around them. Many of the humans died that day, but not before a number of them sacrificed themselves to stop the sinking. Those who lived through the catastrophe moved into the trees, where they gradually died out. I can only assume that they were unsuited to life in such an environment._ **

**_This is the history the old man shared with me, although I must admit many of the details remain unclear to me. That which confuses me most is how exactly the humans saved the island from sinking. If I’m being completely honest, I doubt the validity of that part of the story. The sinking surely must have stopped on its own as I cannot think of any explanation that makes sense to me that would explain it otherwise._ **

“Could magic stop such an event?” Harry asked. He personally had not studied anything thus far at Hogwarts which would seem like a likely or powerful enough spell to stop an island from sinking.

“There are some very powerful rituals which could have such an effect,” Cedric said, after a moment of careful consideration. “They would likely have been blood rituals which could explain why so many of the humans died that day, as the power needed to stop an island from sinking could potentially have cost them every drop of blood and magic in their bodies.”

“That assumes they had magic to sacrifice,” Roger said. “Although, it certainly seems as though the tree-dwellers at least had some rudimentary magic, as I can think of no other way to explain the leader’s hut appearing to be larger on the inside than it was on the outside, unless it was just some sort of optical illusion or Atrus was simply wrong in his observation.”

“Indeed,” Blaise agreed. “So what else does Atrus have to say?”

Roger paused to take a sip of some of the pumpkin juice they’d brought from Hogwarts before he continued reading.

**_Regardless of my own doubts as to the validity of his tale, the old man believes it as if he had been there to witness it. As for tree-dwellers, for whatever reason, they worship the old man, and seemingly all humans, as if they were heroes or gods._ **

**_My conversation with the old man ended today with an event that I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to forget. Tightly gripping my hands he murmured something about rest and asleep and how they’d all expected me to come sooner. His words filled me with a sort of immediate dread for what would happen next._ **

**_I didn’t have to wait long, as with much effort, the old man stood up. When I tried to assist him he pushed me away with more force than his frail body would have appeared to possess. The tree-dwellers were all looking particularly solemn as they kneeled before him._ **

**_He approached each of them and placing his hands upon their heads he murmured something in the tree-dwellers’ strange tongue that I couldn’t understand. Finally, he turned to me and smiled, before he closed his eyes, walked out the door, and off the bridge outside the hut, falling to the walkway below and his death._ **

**_The tree-dwellers remained silent as they proceeded to climb down their rope ladders. As I descended after them, I saw a group of them pick up the old man’s body and carry it away. He was then laid out at the end of a short pier as the tree-dwellers applied some kind of potion to the pier which lit it aflame, engulfing the old man’s remains a second later._ **

**_As this strange funeral is the only thing I can think to call it proceeded, the color of the water around the pier changed to a dull green._ **

“A don’t recall Snape ever teaching us about a potion that could light fires,” Blaise said, as Harry nodded.

“I’m not surprised,” Roger said. “Such potions aren’t taught in the standard potions class and even if they were, it wouldn’t be covered in the OWL level.”

“Yes such potions would be NEWT level,” Cedric agreed. “And actually it’s a form of alchemy rather than a standard potion. Unless there’s some type of ingredients present in this world that are unheard of back home, this would clear up the question of whether they had magic or not. As both alchemy and potions require magic to function.”

Harry nodded but remained silent. That was one thing that he was aware of, despite Snape’s general dislike of explaining anything in class. The simple truth was that no matter how well you followed any given potion’s instructions, they did still require magic to function. Even if a squib or muggle managed to brew a perfect batch, it would be as useless as a heavy winter cloak on a hot summer day.

Shaking his head, Cedric said, “Anyway, if you’d like to take a break for a little while, I can pick up where you left off Rog.”

Roger nodded, glad for the opportunity to rest his voice for a while, as he handed the journal over to Cedric who balanced it in his lap before he continued reading from the point that Roger had left off.

**_The following morning I awoke and would have believed that the events of the previous day had been a dream if it wasn’t for the fact that I was there to witness them. The water of this age is now a dull green as far as I can see and for some reason that I am unable to explain, the shifts in color have ceased._ **

**_As I wander the walkways, the tree-dwellers watch me closely, seemingly curious to see what I will do next. They’re also constantly making offerings to me. Everything from strange objects of affection to the food that was left outside the door to the room where I slept._ **

**_They are certainly a unique race of beings and I hope to be able to learn their language soon. Not only so that I may learn more about them and this world, but also so that I can try to make them understand that they don’t need to worship me as if I was some god walking amongst them. Perhaps it’s due to my experiences with Gehn, but the thought of myself as such makes me very uncomfortable._ **

“Gehn,” Harry said. “That’s a new name that I don’t think I’ve heard before. I wonder who he is.”

The others expressed similar curiosity before Cedric resumed reading.

**_I have now called Channelwood home for three months on and off and the tree-dwellers have shown me great hospitality. I have begun learning bits of their language, which has made life here easier, although I think it is time I return home to Myst for a time. I miss my loving wife and our sons and spending an extended period at home with them would be nice._ **

**_I would love to bring them all along with me on a visit to this age, but I am certain that Catherine will once again refuse. She has been very reticent to visit any age other than Myst ever since Ti’ana’s death._ **

**_As much as I’ve tried to convince her that my grandmother was an old woman and that the illness she contracted while on Torus is not her fault simply because she wrote the descriptive book that forged the link, I’m afraid Catherine simply doesn’t believe me. She’s stopped writing entirely and seems content to never leave Myst ever again._ **

**_I think this age would be an enjoyable experience for them all and I look forward to seeing how Achenar, Sirrus, Kyran, and Tyran at least will react to its curious inhabitants._ **

“Kyran and Tyran,” Roger said. “I’m assuming those must be the twins.”

Blaise nodded. “Yes, I’d assume so. Neither name starts with an S, so I’m assuming this must have been Sirrus’s room.”

“My only question if that is indeed the case,” Harry said, “is why there only appears to be three huts on this level. If Sirrus had his own hut, one would think that Atrus and Achenar would also have their own. Even if the twins shared one, there simply wouldn’t be enough huts on this level to accommodate them all.”

“Hmm, it’s a good question,” Cedric agreed, as he continued reading.

**_As I expected, Catherine has decided to remain behind on Myst. My sons have come with me, however, and they’ve been enjoying this age quite a bit. They get along well with the tree-dwellers and are picking up their language far quicker than I did. I’m sure it won’t be long until they can communicate with them better than I can._ **

**_I am leaving tomorrow to check on the Osmoian Age. Sirrus suggested that I allow him and his brothers to remain here in Channelwood and the other three indicated they’d enjoy that._ **

**_I must admit, the thought unsettles me. While the hospitality that these creatures have shown me and my family does calm my apprehensions about leaving them unsupervised, I am still slightly wary. I suppose it’s due to the knowledge that my boys are rapidly growing up and are fast approaching the point where they will not need Catherine and I to watch over them as much as we have in the past._ **

**_After careful consideration, I decided to grant their request, although I warned them all not to take advantage of the respect that the tree-dwellers have shown to us or our ideas. They seemed to take my warning to heart and I have faith that they will do me proud._ **

“That might explain why there are only three huts,” Roger said. “Maybe they weren’t built until the four boys were here alone.”

“That’s one possibility,” Harry said. “I suppose another might be that Achenar and Sirrus shared one hut originally, the twins another, and Atrus the third. Since it seems that Catherine stays on Myst, the smaller of the three might have been where Atrus slept, as he wouldn’t have needed as much room.”

Cedric and Blaise nodded before Cedric continued.

**_Much to my dismay upon arriving in Everdunes, I’ve been informed that Pran and her people are still being menaced by the Chochtic. I fear for their continued survival and plan to check on them again soon, after checking on my sons here in Channelwood (see Everdunes journal for more information)._ **

**_After watching my sons today, I can see that they’ve been handling themselves very well in my absence and I think I can finally put aside any fears that I had about leaving them alone here for longer periods._ **

**_While the tree-dwellers did seem a bit distressed that I was leaving again so soon, they are happy that Sirrus, Achenar, and the twins are remaining behind._ **

**_I have been gone from Channelwood for the last three days, as I’ve checked in on many of my other ages. Sadly, I had to inform my sons about Pran’s death today. They were visibly shaken, although Achenar and Sirrus were the only ones with clear memories of her from their childhood. Kyran and Tyran were far too young to have more than a few vague memories._ **

**_Catherine has suggested that it would be wise for them to leave Channelwood for a time and return to Myst. While I’m sure that Pran’s death is part of it, I think Catherine also misses her sons and would like to spend some time with them. Regardless, I agree with her and have decided that they will be returning home with me when I leave._ **

**_My sons seemed sad to leave when I told them of my decision, although I think they’re also looking forward to returning to Myst, as I believe they have missed their mother just as much as she’s missed them. Rather than trying to convince me to allow them to stay as I thought they might, they instead spent the entire evening filling me in on some of their adventures while I was away._ **

**_It seems that with help from the tree-dwellers they constructed a boat and traveled some distance out into the surrounding lake. They report that they haven’t been able to find the end of it yet, but are looking forward to returning and trying again in the future. I enjoy hearing about their adventures, as it reminds me of my own when I was their age._ **

**_I’ve finally realized why the tree-dwellers have been giving me several bottles of the inks that they’ve crafted and insisted that I use them to write in this journal. As I page through my past entries, I can’t help but notice that several sections which I had thought were written in black ink when I wrote the entries, has now changed to a myriad of different colors._ **

**_Upon showing some of them my journal, they laughed and howled and I must admit I had no idea they had such a sense of humor. Even now as I look back at my past entries, now written in not only black, but also red, blue, and green, I have to laugh myself. I’ll have to see if I can learn the secret to their color-changing inks, as it is quite a curious sight._ **

“That definitely sounds like magic to me,” Harry said. “I know Scribbulus sells ink that can change color, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such ink sold in the muggle world. At least certainly not ink which appears black when written and then changes to a different color over time.”

Harry tilted his head to one side, as he added, “Although I suppose maybe it is possible. I mean, muggles do have disappearing ink which allows you to write something and then it disappears later.”

“Anything is possible, I guess,” Roger said. “I would lean more towards magic, however, given the other instances where it seems that these tree-dwellers possessed it.”

Blaise nodded in agreement, before he said, “It does beg the question, however, where they are. I mean, the entire village seems like it’s been abandoned. They may have moved elsewhere, but I can’t help but wonder why they would just up and abandon their homes.”

“Maybe the tremors came back,” Harry postulated. “Although, there doesn’t seem to be much damage that can’t be explained away by simple wear and tear from the weather.”

“Well, maybe the rest of the journal will shed some light on that,” Cedric said, as he took a sip of pumpkin juice himself before he continued reading.

**_We will be leaving tomorrow, so my sons are spending this evening with the tree-dwellers. They’ve expressed a desire to return to Channelwood again in the future and have also asked if they could visit some of the other ages alone. Though I will have to consider their request and get Catherine’s input, I believe they’ve proven that they are responsible and can be trusted._ **

**_I suppose it was only a matter of time, since Achenar is now a little over a month away from turning seventeen, while Sirrus recently celebrated his fifteenth birthday. And the twins will be thirteen in less than a week. Oh, they’ve grown up so fast, sometimes I can scarcely believe that they aren’t the same little boys who used to chase each other around on Myst and play with the model ship in the pool outside my library as Catherine and I looked on._ **

**_Still, I think they’ve proven they can be trusted to travel alone. For now, I must go and bid farewell to the tree-dwellers as I’m unsure how long it’ll be until I next visit this age again._ **

“And that’s the end of the journal,” Cedric said. “There’s a hand-drawn map of the village on the last page, along with a picture of one of the huts and half the windmill, but that’s all Atrus wrote.”

“I guess that means he hasn’t been back,” Harry said.

“Well, there’s still some drawers here in the hut that we haven’t looked in,” Blaise said. “I suppose we should see if there’s anything else we can use.”

The others nodded, as they stood up and began looking around the room. Opening one of the drawers under the bed, Harry found some more empty bottles which he set aside, along with a note which was torn in half.

“Hey guys, look at this,” Harry said, as the others gathered around him. “I’m not sure what it says since we only have half of it, but appears to be talking about something on Myst.”

“Hmm, we should take it with us,” Roger said as he held out his hand and Harry gave it to him. “We’ll have to keep an eye out and see if we can find the other half of it.”

The others all made affirmative noises as Roger tucked the torn note into his messenger bag.

Pulling open the drawer of the desk next to the bed, Cedric found a couple of bottles of ink and a single red page. He cocked his head to one side, as he thought back to the library on Myst.

“Isn’t there a book on a display shelf in the Myst library?” Cedric asked. “A red one? With a red page next to it? Because here’s another page.”

Blaise nodded. “Yes, there is. It says Spire on the cover and from what I saw it appears to be another linking book, but I couldn’t see the age that it links to. Several pages appear to have been ripped out and as a result, the linking panel is covered in static.”

“There’s also a blue one on a display on the opposite side of the room,” Roger said. “Same setup, a single blue page lying next to it. Only it says Haven on the cover. I didn’t look inside it, however, as I was just about to do that when you guys first activated the tree lift and Blaise and I came to investigate the noise.”

Handing the page to Roger, Cedric said, “Well, put it in your bag and we’ll investigate the books when we get back to Myst.”

Roger nodded as he did just that. A search around the rest of the room didn’t turn up anything of particular interest, so Harry and Blaise started shrinking the empty wine bottles to carry in their pockets until they were ready to fill them.

They finished searching the hut just as the sun was beginning to peak over the horizon, so unlocking the door, they made their way outside to explore the other two huts they’d seen on this level.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there’s Ch4. I’ll wrap up Channelwood in the next chapter and they’ll finally examine the red and blue books in the library back on Myst.
> 
> Much of Atrus’s Channelwood journal as it appears in this chapter does appear in the first Myst game, although I did rewrite sections to change the wording and/or phrasing to still get the same point across without it being a word for word copy of the in-game text. I also added a section or two which didn’t appear at all.
> 
> Any mention of the twins, Kyran and Tyran, are my additions as they are original characters who do not appear in canon. The circumstances of Ti’ana’s death and the reason why Catherine refused to visit Channelwood was also not mentioned in the age’s journal in-game.
> 
> I also figured I'd experiment with including some pictures in the chapters to help those of you who'd like to visualize the locations a bit. I probably won't start including pictures of the characters, as those can still be viewed on my wiki. Those of you familiar with the game will know that I added the bathroom and closet to Sirrus's hut, but I figured they made sense to be included even if they didn't appear in the game.


	5. The Myst Library

Journey into the Ages  
By J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Chapter Five:  
The Myst Library

-o-0-o-

Leaving Sirrus’s hut, the boys made their way across the rope bridges to the first of the other two huts on this level. Upon pushing open the metal door of the hut, they all jumped slightly as a holographic image of a young mid-twenty-something man with black hair appeared and started talking in some sort of strange language that none of them understood.

When the hologram stopped talking and disappeared, Cedric said, “Okay, that was mildly frightening.”

Nodding, Blaise said, “Yes. I’m assuming that was the tree-dwellers’ native tongue, not that I understand a word of what was said.”

“Yeah, I can’t say that I did either,” Harry said, as he looked around the room. “Is it just me or does this room resemble some sort of temple?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Roger said. “This thing that the hologram appeared above almost seems like an altar.” As he examined it, he reached out and touched the center of it, quickly drawing back his hand as two large steel claws clamped together. “A very dangerous altar.”

“Clearly not living quarters,” Cedric said. “Unless it was altered from its original purpose. Although I suppose it could always have been a temple, as Atrus did say in the journal that the tree-dwellers worshipped humans. Maybe that message was some sort of sermon or something.”

“Possibly. We know that wasn’t Atrus, as we saw him in the imager back on Myst,” Blaise said. “Plus, he expressed discomfort with being worshipped, so I can’t imagine he’d take on the role of priest for the tree-dwellers in their apparent religion.”

“True, which suggests that was one of his sons,” Roger said. “I have no idea which one though.”

“Well, let’s move to the last hut on this level,” Harry said. “This place is kinda giving me the creeps.”

The others nodded and moved out the door on the other side of the room from where they’d entered. A minute or two later, they were walking into the final hut and Harry said, “Yeah, okay, this isn’t any better.”

The room was sparse with a very rudimentary looking bed and a table that was fall of sharpened metal spikes. There were also various weapons hung on the walls, including a scythe.

“Definitely glad we spent the night in the other hut,” Roger said, as he looked around. “This would have been very uncomfortable.”

Blaise and Cedric nodded but otherwise remained silent. Looking around Harry spied a blue page on the floor which he picked up and handed to Roger who put it away in his bag.

“What’s this thing I wonder?” Cedric asked as he noticed a pedestal-like device with four buttons on it.

Pressing the first button, the same holographic image from the temple hut played. The second and third buttons had similar holograms with the same person speaking. The fourth, however, was different and for a change, in English.

“I hope I pushed the right button, my dear brother,” said a male who bore a familial resemblance to the first speaker, but looked slightly younger. “What a very interesting device you have here. I'm not erasing anything important, am I?” The man threw his head back and laughed at this in a way that made it clear he didn’t care if he was erasing anything important. “Remember, he is preparing. Take only one page, Achenar, just one.”

As the image disappeared, Cedric said, “Okay. Well, from that I’m guessing that the one speaking the tree-dwellers’ language must have been Achenar. And since this person seemed not that much younger, I’m guessing it was Sirrus.”

Blaise nodded. “Yes, that would make sense I think. The twins are like four years younger than Achenar and I don’t think this person looked that much younger. Maybe about two years at the most.”

“Which would fit with his children’s ages that Atrus gave in the journal,” Harry said. “I’m guessing that it was written a few years ago, however. As Achenar and Sirrus look older in these images than seventeen and fifteen.”

“True,” Roger said. “And Atrus’s message back on Myst mentioned that the twins were on their honeymoons. I’d assume that means they’re not nearly thirteen anymore, as that would be very young to be getting married.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Blaise said. “There doesn’t seem to be anything else to do here.”

The others nodded, as they made their way back down to the village level. Blaise and Harry took the lift, while Cedric and Roger apparated. Once there they began harvesting the food they’d seen the previous night.

In the daylight, they could see that all of the fruit was actually things they were familiar with from back home. It had just been very hard to see that last night in the waning sunlight with only the light from their wand tips. Perhaps unsurprisingly since it was all recognizable, none of it was registering as poisonous according to the spell Professor Sprout had taught them, so at least their food and water concerns had been allayed.

True, they’d all love a supply of vegetables, eggs, milk, and various spices, but they could certainly make do with fruit, nuts, and whatever fish and fowl they could get on Myst for the time being. At least they wouldn’t starve.

Once they were done with their harvesting, they noticed a lone hut in the distance which had no bridges going to it.

“There’s a lift under it,” Roger said as he looked down with the telescope. “Looks like the pipe that powers the generator is broken.” After a moment he said, “Oh, no, I take that back, it’s not broken. The pipe on the other side has a crank and what look like the lips of multiple nested pipes, so I think it’s actually a telescoping pipe that can be extended by turning the crank.”

They all headed down via the stairs and seeing what Roger was talking about, Cedric apparated over to the crank and turned it. Sure enough, a pipe extended out to the pipe on the other side, completing the circuit.

“Well, that handles that,” Cedric said. “I suppose if we flip some of the switches it’ll provide power to the generator that powers the lift and we can see what’s in that small hut.”

“There’s another generator over there,” Harry pointed. “By that broken section of path which leads to the lift.”

“Hmm, and unlike the others, we’ve seen, that one actually has a lever on it,” Blaise added. “Maybe we should direct the water to it first, see what it does and then redirect it to the lift?”

The others agreed with that suggestion and set about flipping the necessary junction switches to redirect the water flow in the right direction. Walking over to the generator, Harry pulled the lever and grinned as a previously hidden section of the walkway raised up out of the water.

“Well, that’s useful for those of us that can’t apparate,” Harry said, as Blaise nodded.

Cedric, Harry, and Blaise walked towards the lift using the newly raised path, while Roger popped back over to the junction switch that would redirect the water to the lift’s generator.

“And we’ve got power,” Cedric said, as he stepped into the lift and closed the door to ride up. He came back a moment later, as Roger arrived at the lift.

“So, what’s up there?” Blaise asked.

“A Myst linking book,” Cedric said. “It’s a little different from the one we’ve got though, because I think the link in point is in the Myst library, instead of on the dock. As the linking panel shows the ceiling and chandelier in the library.”

“Should we take it with us?” Harry asked. “It would be nice for us if we all had our own. And I know I’ve got a bag similar to Roger’s in my trunk that I could use, I don’t know about the rest of you.”

Blaise and Cedric indicated that they both had one too, as they’d actually all bought one at the beginning of this school year. With Dumbledore’s blessing, a couple of the more business-minded seventh years had opened a small store in one of the unused ground floor classrooms that they turned into a school store.

Students could buy not only a variety of clothes stamped with the Hogwarts logo or their house logo, but also a variety of school supplies, such as quills, ink, and parchment. Also available were messenger bags that could be used to carry school supplies and books between classes.

A few of the stores in Hogsmeade were supplying the merchandise, with the agreement was that both Hogwarts and the two seventh years whose idea it had been would get a cut of the profits.

Cedric, Roger, Blaise, and Harry had liked the idea of being able to carry all their supplies to class in the bag, thus keeping their hands free, and had purchased one that was embroidered with their house’s logo and had been personalized with their names.

“That would leave anyone who comes to this age stranded here,” Cedric said, “if they don’t have a linking book back, but as far as we know, the only way to actually get here is from the book back on Myst, so as long as we’re there we can warn anyone who comes to Myst of the missing book.”

Harry nodded. “Maybe we should write a note and put it in the Channelwood book room just in case somebody were to come while we’re visiting one of the other ages.”

The others nodded in agreement before Cedric popped back up to the small room since he’s been there now, grabbed the book, and came back down. Handing it to Roger, he said, “Well, there’s not much room here to unshrink our trunks and get our bags from them so, if you could carry it in yours until we’re back?”

Roger nodded as he opened the book to the linking panel and held it out, “Will do. For now, you can all use it to link back.”

-o-0-o-

Twenty minutes later, all four boys were back in the Myst library and now wearing their own messenger bags. Cedric had also written a note and placed it in the Channelwood book room warning that there was no linking book back to Myst in Channelwood any longer.

Just in case, they wrote the note in several languages, combining their skills to hopefully cover all the bases. Thus, the note was written in English and Latin, compliments of all of them. Cedric added a French translation, while Roger added Spanish and Blaise added Italian. Finally, Roger and Cedric collaborated to add their best attempt at a D’ni translation.

“Well, which book should we start with first?” Harry asked as he spied the two books on opposite sides of the room. “Spire or Haven?”

“We found the red page first, so how about that one?” Blaise asked, prompting the others to nod as they made their way over to the red book stamped with the word Spire on the cover.

Opening the cover, Roger said, “As you can see, the linking panel is nothing but static. But, you can see where it looks like several pages were ripped out of the book.”

Roger picked up the red page that was on the display shelf next to the book and laid it on the front cover, opposite the page containing the linking panel. All four boys were amazed when seemingly of its own accord the book repaired itself, sealing the page back into the binding as if it had never been removed.

Before any of them could comment, however, the static in the linking panel cleared ever so slightly and the face of a man appeared. His visage was blinking in and out, but from what they could see he looked like the man from Achenar’s holo-imager that they assumed was Sirrus.

_“Kyran, is that you? No… you wouldn’t… it must be… someone else…”_

His speech was broken and hard to hear through the static as he blinked in and out.

_“Who are you… You must help me, please… Bring me the red page… I can't… I can't see you… hear me… I need a red page, you must bring me a red page… Please bring … beg of you, bring the page… Help me… I am Sirrus… I’d almost given up hope… There is one thing I need to be rescued… You must…”_

Whatever else Sirrus might have had to say was drowned out by the static as the linking panel faded to black.

“Okay, that was unexpected,” Harry said. “I didn’t expect there to be people in these books.”

“Neither did I,” Roger said. “It’s also strange because, from my limited knowledge of the D’ni, I’ve never heard of anyone being able to communicate with the outside world through a linking book’s linking panel.”

Cedric nodded his head. “True, my understanding was always that the panel is a one-way look into the age it links to. I don’t see how it would be possible for somebody to communicate through the panel. The book is still here on Myst, so how could he possibly communicate with us?”

“Knowing nothing of the D’ni, I can’t really say,” Blaise said. “Although, there is clearly magic in the book, not only because of the whole dimensional travel element that they facilitate, but also because the page seemed to magically reconnect to the binding when it was put back in as if it had never been ripped out.”

“Yes and normal books can’t do that,” Harry said. “Or at least no books that I’ve ever seen before now can do that.”

“Well, we’ve got another red page with us, so shall we see what else Sirrus has to say?” Roger asked as the others nodded, prompting the Ravenclaw to fish the red page from his bag and place it back in the book.

Like the first page had, this one seemed to magically reattach itself to the binding, as the linking panel came back to life. Still with quite a bit of static, but slightly clearer this time than the first time.

As Sirrus’s face appeared on the panel again, he said, _“You've returned… quite quickly… Good… Thank you for bringing the red page…”_

The four boys looked at each other but remained silent as it didn’t seem like a good idea to attempt to talk to Sirrus, as they could barely understand him through all the static.

_“You must continue to help me… My name is Sirrus… Release me… I beg you to find the remaining red pages. You must release me… release me from this book which has become… Bring… red page… I need more red pages, please… I beg you…”_

_“Beware, my brothers… don't waste time looking… for blue pages… don't… free Ach… my brother… my brothers are guilty… and I wrongfully imprisoned… bring the red pages to me…”_

Sirrus cut out again, as the static intensified for a moment before the panel once again turned black. Since they had no more pages, Roger closed the book.

“Hmm, from what he’s saying,” Blaise said, “I’m guessing that Achenar is in the Haven book. He also seems to be suggesting that he’s been wrongfully imprisoned by Achenar and at least Kyran since he didn’t name both twins.”

Nodding, Harry said, “Well, shall we see what Achenar has to say? It doesn’t seem like two pages are enough to free either of them, so I suppose it doesn’t hurt to get both sides of the story, so to speak?”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Cedric said, as the four teens crossed the library over to the blue book that read Haven on its cover, as Cedric this time opened the book and placed the blue page from the display shelf into the book.

That static cleared slightly as the man they’d seen speaking in the tree-dwellers’ language appeared.

_“Sirrus? Tyran? Kyran? Is… that you? No… who are you? I… can’t see you… Achenar… to help me… to bring… blue pages to… forever and ever… blue pages… I must have the blue pages… Bring them to me, please.”_

As the linking panel was covered in static before fading to black, the four teens looked at each other, as Roger said, “Well, Achenar named all of his siblings.”

The others nodded even as Roger handed the blue page from Channelwood to Cedric who laid it in place, as they again watched it reattach to the binding.

Seconds later, the linking panel came to life again as Achenar began speaking again.

_“Oh! You've returned… thought you wouldn't return… blue pages to rescue me… I am Achenar… my brothers… I beg you… may be complete… always blue pages… not listen to them, do not listen to my brothers… egotistical fools and liars… Help me… bring me the blue pages. Ignore the red ones, don't bring the red ones… earnestly implore you… I've been wrongfully imprisoned, you must believe me… I will have my retribution, please bring me the blue pages… blue pages, please.”_

“And they both claim to be wrongfully imprisoned,” Blaise said. “And both seem intent on casting blame on their other siblings, making themselves out to be the innocent and wronged party.”

Harry nodded. “And yet it’s seemingly only Sirrus and Achenar that are imprisoned. So unless they return here to Myst after their honeymoons, we won’t be able to ask Kyran and Tyran for their side of this story.”

“Well, there might be a way,” Cedric said, even as he closed the cover of the book. “I suppose we’d have to find a linking book to the age where they were spending their honeymoons. Where did Atrus’s message say it was again?”

“Shorato,” Roger said. “Which if my D’ni is correct, appears to be a combination of the words for peaceful and place.”

Cedric cocked his head to the side as he thought about it, before nodding, “Yeah, I think you’re right. If I’m recalling correctly, ‘shoraht’ is D’ni for peaceful while ‘to’ is D’ni for place. And just ‘shorah’ without the ‘t’ at the end means peace. So either way, I guess the combination would mean peaceful place.”

“Sounds like a good place to spend one’s honeymoon I suppose,” Blaise said. “Of course, I’m not sure I’d want to interrupt anyone’s honeymoon.”

“Yeah, plus we don’t even know if they’re still on it,” Harry said. “Even if we did find a linking book to Shorato, we could get there and find out they’re not even there. After all, we don’t actually know how long ago Atrus’s message was recorded.”

“True,” Roger said. “Although I’m inclined to believe that it can’t have been too long ago, because of the note you found, Harry. It didn’t appear to be water-damaged from rain and it hadn’t blown away despite the sea breeze.”

Nodding, Harry said, “True, of course, we also don’t know for sure that where I found the note is actually where Atrus left it. The library doesn’t have a door, after all, so he could have left it in there and it since blew out to where I found it.”

“True,” Cedric said. “Well, I think we’ve done everything we can with the Spire and Haven books for the time being. At least until we find more pages and I think to do that, we’ll presumably have to visit another age, so we should probably try to figure out this tower rotation thing.”

“Yes, how to access the tower would be a good start,” Blaise said. “I guess we’ll have to examine these books. Most of them are burned but… wait, it’s there a spell to reverse damage to a book?”

“There is a spell which will reverse the damage done due to time,” Cedric said. “Like if the ink fades over time. I’m not sure if it would work on pages that have been nearly or completely burned, however.”

“Neither am I, to be honest,” Roger said. “Of course, I suppose we could try it. If it doesn’t work, then we’re in the same boat we’re in now and if it does, we might get some extra information we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”

Everyone agreed to try the charm, but before they did they decided to finish sorting the books, as there were still a number of them on the shelves.

Nearly an hour later, the bookshelf was empty, as they’d removed all the books and sorted them between three piles. Damaged journals, damaged linking books, and books that were still readable.

Among those that were still readable, even though the book was burned around the edges, was a rather odd volume which consisted of 300 pages of nothing but a collection of grids that were all eight squares wide by six squares tall. Each page featured one of these grids, with a different pattern of the various grid squares filled in.

“Hmm, I’m guessing this is going to be important somehow,” Roger said, as he leafed through the book. “Why have it otherwise? Question is what do we do with it?”

“I don’t know, but maybe since it’s not as badly burned as some of the others,” Cedric said, “we can try the book restoration charm on it and see if it can restore the burned sections.”

“That’s a good idea,” Harry said. “Maybe there’s some clue as to what these various patterns are in the burned sections of the book.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Blaise said, with a shrug of his shoulders. As he said this, he adjusted his stance a bit and found himself tripping on one of the piles of damaged books. Instinctively he put his hands out to try and catch himself as he fell over.

While Harry was quick to reach out and catch him, it wasn’t until after Blaise’s hands hit the wall with the painting that depicted the bookshelf. The second his hands did that, he was sure that he’d felt something under the painting, which surprisingly did not get damaged by his hands hitting it.

Before anyone could comment, however, there was a noise as a solid stone wall went down over the entrance to the library, sealing them inside.

A moment later, there was also a noise that sounded like gears activating, before the small wooden half circle above the bookcase lifted up and the bookcase itself started moving backward, as the three large shelves began sinking down into the ground at different heights, forming a staircase of three steps that led into a hallway behind it.

“And we’ve found a secret passageway,” Blaise said as he pulled himself upright with Harry’s help.

“Well, we can figure out how to back out later,” Cedric said, as he glanced over at the wall opposite the portrait of the bookcase and noted the portrait of the open door leading into the room. “Although I’m guessing that since the portrait of the bookcase opened the secret passage, that the portrait of the open archway will close it and reopen the entrance to this building.”

“Seems like a reasonable assumption to me,” Harry said, even as he climbed the steps and began making his way down the newly revealed wood-paneled hallway. The other three were hot on his heels.

Reaching the room at the end, Harry grinned, “And we’ve found a lift. Considering that I’m assuming this hallway leads into the mountain behind the library and the tower is on top of the mountain…”

“This lift probably goes up to the tower,” Cedric finished before he pulled open the iron gate and all four of them got into the lift.

It was a slightly tight fit, but considering just how intimately they knew each other, they really were not concerned about their bodies being pressed together.

Roger closed the gate, at which point Cedric pushed the single button under a tiny screen which read “Library”. Almost immediately, the lift began going up and they all noted during its ascent it actually rotated, before coming to a stop on another floor. The screen now read “Tower”.

As Roger opened the gate and they emerged from the lift, they all gave each other a high five, as they were happy to have solved this mystery at least. Straight ahead of them was a ladder leading up to a platform that had a plaque depicting a book emblazoned on it.

Climbing up the ladder, Harry found that he could look out through a narrow slit in the roof and could see the sunken ship down by the dock.

As he did this, the other way explored the rest of the room. It was Blaise who got to the ladder on the opposite side of the lift first. Which he noted had a plaque with a key on it. Smiling he said, “Okay, I’m guessing this has something to do with the access keys that Atrus mentioned.”

Climbing up the ladder and looking straight ahead of him, Blaise found another plaque affixed to the wall. Calling down, he said, “Okay, there’s three dates and times up here.”

Even though all of them now had their messenger bags and had a collection of parchment, quills, and ink on them, Roger was actually the only one of the four that had Ever-full quill that he didn’t need to dip in an ink bottle to write with. So pulling out a sheaf of parchment, a copy of Spellman’s Syllabary, and one of his quills, he motioned for Cedric to bend over.

Rolling his eyes, Cedric bent over at an angle, as Roger placed the book on Cedric’s back, with the parchment on top of it and poised his quill, ready to write. “Okay, what are they, Blaise?”

“October 11, 1984, 10:04 AM,” Blaise read, even as he shook his head at what he viewed as the incorrect date format, since being British, he was used to day-month-year, rather than month-day-year.

Writing it down, Roger said, “Okay, next?”

“January 17, 1207, 5:46 AM.”

There was a pause as Roger wrote it down and called up, “And the last one?”

“November 23, 9791, 6:57 PM,” Blaise called down.

“Got it,” Roger said before he proceeds to call each of them up to Blaise to double-check that he’d copied them down correctly, who confirmed that yes he had, before climbing down the ladder.

As Harry rounded the lift to where the others were standing, he grinned and as Roger was putting away his writing supplies, he reached out and pinched Cedric’s arse.

“Why you little devil,” Cedric said as he stood up and pinned Harry against the back of the lift and kissed him hard on the lips. Blaise and Roger grinned as the former said, “I’d tell you guys to get a room, but so far the only beds we’ve found are in Channelwood.”

Breaking their kiss, Harry smirked at Blaise and said, “And I suppose if we did get a room, you’d want to join us?”

“Duh,” Blaise answered.

Shaking his head, Harry said, “Well, the tower is currently rotated so that you can see the sunken ship, so I’m guessing these dates have something to do with it.”

Roger nodded. “Yes, and the only place on the island we’ve seen anything with dates is the planetarium. So, I think that’s our next stop.”

Harry, Cedric, and Blaise nodded in agreement before they got into the lift and made their way back down to the library.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have Ch5 of ‘Journey into the Ages’. I decided to actually use the “trap” books as they were shown in Myst and Riven, even though the developers did later write it out of the canon and say that they don’t work that way.
> 
> I’ve got an idea for how to make it work though, which will come up at some point in the story. Anyway, I think I’m going to try to get some more chapters out for one of my other stories now that I’ve written five chapters in a row for this one.


	6. Stoneship Age, Part One

Journey into the Ages  
By J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Chapter Six:  
Stoneship Age, Part One

-o-0-o-

Arriving back in the library, Cedric’s assumption proved true, as once all four of them had exited the hallway behind the bookcase, he went over to the picture on the wall of the open archway and began running his hands over it. A second later, he found the button hidden behind the canvas and pushed it, as the bookcase rose back up and the entrance to the library reopened.

As he was doing this, Roger found the puzzle book and cast the book restoration spell on it. He wasn’t sure it would work on the burned pages, but it didn’t hurt to try. Plus, of all the burned books, it was the least damaged, so he figured it was a good one to try the spell on.

“That spell can’t harm the book, right?” Blaise asked.

“Nope,” Roger said. “The worst that can happen is that nothing happens and the book remains in the same condition it’s in now.”

“Right,” Harry said. “Well, we can get out now so let’s head next door and see about these dates.”

The others nodded before they left the library and walked next door to the building in question. As they were leaving the library, Roger, on the assumption that since the tower was pointing at the sunken ship, gripped the journal they’d found while sorting through the books which talked about an age called Stoneship.

Arriving in the planetarium, Cedric closed the door as Blaise turned off the lights. Harry, meanwhile, pushed Roger down into the chair and then proceed to sit in his lap.

“Comfy?” Roger asked.

“Very,” Harry answered. “I figured you’ve got the dates written down and since I’m the muggle-raised one that I can figure out the controls the best.”

Roger was pretty sure that he could have figured out the controls himself considering that they were just up and down sliders and a button, but he chose not to comment. He certainly wasn’t going to complain about one of his lover sitting on his lap.

Pulling out the parchment he wrote the dates on, as Harry pulled the controls lower, Roger wrapped one arm around Harry’s waist and pulled him a little closer with one arm, as he held out the parchment with his other so that it was in front of them.

Of course, with the lights before off, it was a little hard to see what was written on the parchment, prompting Harry to ask Cedric to light his wand tip.

“Ah, much better,” Harry said, as he adjusted the sliders to October 11, 1984, at 10:04 AM. As he did so, he couldn’t help but ponder about the fact that the time was during the daytime.

He knew, of course, that the stars didn’t go away during the day, even if you couldn’t see them. Still, he found it interesting and not for the first time found himself wondering why on Earth nobody had thought to make a planetarium at Hogwarts so that the students wouldn’t have to get up in the middle of the night for Astronomy lessons.

He couldn’t imagine that he was the only muggle-raised student who’d thought of it. He assumed nobody had actually said anything to the professors about it though, because unless they or the Board of Governors liked students having to get up at midnight for a class, he couldn’t imagine why they hadn’t down anything about it.

The ceiling in the Great Hall could show the sky outside, so surely it wasn’t that hard with magic to charm a ceiling to show an accurate depiction of the nighttime sky even during the day. He resolved to bring it up with Dumbledore if he ever got back to Hogwarts.

Harry may have had his disagreements with Dumbledore over the years, true, but compared to Umbitch he was a definite improvement. Seeing as how of the two of them, only one of them employed a blood quill for detentions and turned Hogwarts into a prison. The founders were no doubt rolling over in their graves.

Pressing the button, the small screen to the left made a whirring noise as it scanned the blackness. When it stopped, there was a constellation visible on the screen.

Taking out his copy of Spellman’s Syllabary, Roger handed it to Blaise and said, “Hold this so that I’ve got a hard surface to write on.”

Blaise nodded as he crouched next to the chair so that he was holding the book above Harry’s lap. Roger placed took his Everfull quill from his bag as he placed the parchment on the book and began carefully copying it down. When he was done, he told Harry to enter the next date. Roger copied it down before they moved on to the final one.

Once Roger was finished, Harry pushed the console back up, although before he got back up, he grinned devilishly, making Blaise and Cedric—who could both see his face in the light from Cedric’s wand—smirk as Harry wriggled his arse on Roger’s lap, just as he’d done back in Channelwood.

“Harry, just so you know, the next bed we find, your arse is mine.”

“Fine by me,” Harry said, as he wriggled his arse once more before he got up. “I do quite enjoy being sandwiched between two of you, after all.”

As Roger stood up, Cedric made his way over to the light switch and turned the lights back on, as he said, “Well, I guess it’s a good thing that the four of us complement each other’s preferences so well.”

“True,” Blaise agreed, who preferred bottoming. Once in a great while, he liked to switch it up, but for the most part, he preferred having a dick in his arse, rather than the other way around.

Roger, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of Blaise, preferring primarily to top, but still willing to bottom occasionally, if the mood struck him. This worked out perfectly fine for Harry and Cedric who were both versatile and didn’t mind doing either one whenever they could.

Of course, they’d both been curious about what it would be like to do both at the same time. Which is why they’d taken Roger and Blaise into their bed a few months back. The plan had been for it to be a one-time thing, but as they often do, plans changed, when Harry and Cedric both realized how much they enjoyed being in the middle.

Extinguishing his wand, Cedric pushed open the door and the four of them left the planetarium. Since it was a nice day and there were no chairs to sit on in the library, the four of them instead made their way over to the stone walkway that led to the large copper-colored spaceship. Taking a seat on the edge, the legs dangling over the side, Roger pulled out the journal for the Stoneship Age.

Opening the journal, Roger said, “Apparently, Atrus had originally named this age The Rocks, but he crossed that out and renamed it Stoneship.”

The others nodded before Roger began reading.

> **_“Emmit was the first to live on The Rocks, a name which he’d chosen since that’s exactly what they were: a cluster of jagged rocks clustered together amidst a seemingly endless sea. Emmit enjoyed his life and would sometimes swim to some of the nearby rocks, which weren’t too great a distance._ **
> 
> **_“One day a new boy named Branch arrived on the rock that Emmit called home. The two boys quickly became friends as they swam and fished together. Emmit showed Branch the cave on the largest rock in which he lived and it wasn’t long before Branch found a second cave to call his own._ **
> 
> **_“The sun was always shining in their world and the water was almost brilliantly clear, allowing them to almost sea to the depths of the ocean floor. Despite the sun always shining, a refreshingly cool northern breeze prevented the two boys from getting too hot._ **
> 
> **_“One day, while Branch was having fun swimming, he noticed another boy doing the same. Taking the new boy back to Emmit, they soon learned that his name was Will. The group of three continued to swim, play, and fish from the day onward, enjoying their idyllic world._ **
> 
> **_“Or at least, that’s the history I was given upon arriving at this age for the first time today. The three boys were clearly surprised to see me at first, but before the day was out, we were becoming good friends.”_ **

Roger handed the book over to Blaise at this point, as he reached into his bag and took out a bottle of water, taking a swig as the black teen began reading the next segment aloud.

> **_“It was on the second day of my visit that something strange happened. Well, to clarify, it wasn’t the least bit strange for me, but it was for the three boys. I was resting under a large tree on one of the smaller islands when it began raining. It was a nice, gentle rain that lasted about an hour, but it left Emmit, Branch, and Will quite fearful as it had apparently never rained in their world before so they didn’t know what to make of it._ **
> 
> **_“I did my best to calm them down and explain what it was and that it wasn’t harmful, but it was evident that they still didn’t like it. Before retiring for the evening, I told the boys that I would be leaving in the morning and that while I was gone, I would make a surprising change to their world. Needless to say, they didn’t understand what I meant, but then I wasn’t really expecting them to._ **
> 
> **_“I’ve been experimenting with Regestoy—otherwise known as The Art—to test the boundaries of the rules dictated to me by Father. I attempted to create a ship in the age by writing it into the descriptive book. I thought I’d planned everything right, but it didn’t turn out quite as I’d imagined._ **
> 
> **_“Upon my return, I found that the ship had broken in half and was literally fused with the larger rock that held the caves that the boys called home. Although this testing didn’t turn out as planned, it did provide me with the answers to some questions that my father never deigned to answer. As for the ship, failed experiment or not, the boys greatly enjoy it and have been playing on it all day.”_ **

“Well, that’s interesting,” Cedric said as he took the book from Blaise, preparing to take his turn reading from the journal. “The D’ni always did keep very scant written records about The Art, likely to avoid it falling into the wrong hands. So the word regestoy doesn’t appear in the D’ni lexicon that Professor Babbling gave us to study from.”

“Indeed,” Roger said, even as he tilted his head to the side in thought for a moment, before he wondered aloud, “Could the Gehn mentioned in the Channelwood journal be Atrus’s father, I wonder?”

“No idea,” Harry said. “Maybe we’ll find more clues in the journal though.”

Cedric nodded, as he began reading.

> **_“Despite being immobile, I’ve also found myself enjoying the ship. As the boys play, I’ve spent my time studying, as the ship does provide a much more stable platform than that of the rocks. My observations have revealed some interesting data about this age’s solar system. The nights here are gorgeous, and I’ve made note of a number of the constellations as they pass above me. I’ve already named several of them._ **
> 
> **_“During the night, I also caught a glimpse of a glimmer of light on the horizon. I’m uncertain if it is caused by some natural phenomenon or by additional people on far off islands or rocks. While I lack concrete proof, I’m inclined to think that people aren’t outside the realm of possibility, as that would explain Branch and Will._ **
> 
> **_“It began raining a bit heavier than normal today. The boys had only just started getting used to the light rain when a small storm arrived. They were clearly agitated by the heavier downpour and downright afraid of the thunder and lightning. The boys still insist that the rain is new to their world and that none of them had seen the like of it until recently. I would very much like to discover if I can, the reason for its appearance now._ **
> 
> **_“Regardless, I have decided that it’s time to return home to Myst for a time to spend time with Catherine, our sons, and Anna. I have, however, been drawing up plans for a lighthouse that I’d like to construct in this age. I believe shining a bright light across the horizon may answer my questions about other inhabitants as I’d imagine they’d be curious about the light and seek its source. Assuming that is that they have the means of sea travel._ **
> 
> **_“It’s been a few weeks since my last visit and today I’ve brought many of the tools I’ll need to construct the lighthouse. Once it’s built, I think I shall leave this age alone for a longer period and let this world’s own imagination take control of its further development._ **
> 
> **_“We have spent the last three weeks working on the lighthouse now and have made great progress. Emmit, Branch and Will are all in their early to mid-teens now. They’re also quite strong and have proven to be of immense help to me in the construction. The rock we’ve been building on isn’t quite as stable as I’d like and I’ve had to alter my plans a bit. However, the alterations haven’t posed too much of an issue and I estimate building will be done in two days.”_ **

Handing the journal off to Harry, Cedric leaned over and placed a kiss on the brunet’s cheek. Even though Harry had been doing his level best to distract Cedric while he was reading by running his hand up and down Cedric’s inner thigh. And then began fondling his dick through his jeans during the last paragraph.

 _‘Of course, two could play at that game,’_ Cedric thought as Harry began reading.

> **_“The lighthouse is finished and all four of us are quite proud of the accomplishment. The boys were astonished by the structure they’d helped create with their own hands from the rock. That evening, I powered up the generator to shine a light on the horizon for many hours. I opted to stay at the top of the lighthouse and was pleased to awaken and observe the sunrise the next morning without being coated in a cold and damp blanket of ocean dew, as I’d previously become accustomed._ **
> 
> **_“Within a few nights of lighting the lighthouse’s lamp for the first time, its construction paid off. Will was getting ready to go fishing when he saw the girl swimming not far from the ship. Closer inspection revealed a man not far from the girl. All three boys were pleased to meet their new neighbors._ **
> 
> **_“I feel content to be leaving this age. I think I’ve set in motion events which, while having nothing to do with writing or Regestoy, will have a far more profound effect on this world than anything I could have written._ **
> 
> **_“Besides, I have another new age to visit. It seems that I will require a means of traveling underwater in the age, so much planning will be required. I look forward to putting what I’m now calling The Stoneship Age aside for a time as a gift for myself to open in the future and see what surprises are waiting for me to discover._ **
> 
> **_“It’s been ten years now since my last visit. Upon returning I could scarcely believe the changes which had taken place. The original three boys as I had grown so fond of calling them were, of course, no longer boys but grown men. There were also several new faces that I didn’t recognize. Branch informed me that it hadn’t rained for seven years and that the cool breezes were back once more._ **
> 
> **_“They are all very happy and have been serving me new foods and have been quite eager to show me all of the materials that they’ve discovered. They clearly found a source of gold somewhere, as I see it in many forms around the island. My lighthouse has been kept in perfect working order and it looks like Emmit, Branch, and Will have taken great pride in keeping it so._ **
> 
> **_“I have noticed, however, that the instability of the rock the lighthouse was built upon may be catching up. It has sunk approximately forty to fifty centimeters since my last visit. Still, it’s been wonderful visiting with my old friends and we were all looking forward to what new changes would come to this world within the next ten years.”_ **

“And that’s the end of the journal,” Harry said. “Of course, there were pictures throughout, including an overview map of the island.”

Flipping through the next several pages, Harry added, “There are also several drawings of constellations which have a picture beneath them of what I’d assume Atrus believed each one most resembled.”

“Well that’s interesting,” Roger said. “I suppose we should take a look at Atrus’s drawings and see if any of the constellations we copied down in the planetarium match with the ones in the journal.”

It wasn’t long before Blaise said, “Wait a minute, these symbols seem very familiar. Anchor, eye, snake, insect, cross, arrow, bird, and leaf… I think the same symbols are on those boxes in front of the pillars that line the path by the reflecting pool that has a miniature version of the sunken ship inside it.”

The others nodded, as they all put their heads together and studied the images in the journal, comparing them to the drawings from the planetarium. After some careful study, they agreed that the first date, 11 October, matched the leaf pattern, while 17 January matched the snake pattern, and 23 November corresponded with the insect pattern.

“Well, let’s go examine those boxes a bit then, shall we?” Harry said as he used Cedric’s shoulder to steady himself while he stood up from the stone walkway they’d been sitting on.

Once they were all standing, they made their way over to the boxes and found the three that represented the patterns from the planetarium. It also wasn’t long before they realized that the patterns on the boxes were actually buttons. So, they agreed to press the buttons for the leaf, snake, and insect and see if that did anything.

The moment all three buttons were pressed, they immediately heard water running, as if somebody had turned on a tap, followed by a louder noise that sounded like machinery of some kind coming to life.

“Well, the ship in the pool is no longer sunk,” Roger said before he placed his hand above his eyes to shield them from the sunlight as he looked in the direction of the dock and added, “And I can see the top of the mast of the ship by the dock over the treetops, so it would seem it’s not sunken anymore either.”

“Cool,” Harry said. “I suppose the linking book to Stoneship is on the ship somewhere. Presumably in one of the cabins or below deck, so that it would have stayed dry while the ship was underwater.”

“Let’s have a look then, shall we?” Blaise asked as he started walking towards the docks, with the others close behind.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have Ch6 of ‘Journey into the Ages’. So, next chapter they’ll be exploring the Stoneship Age. I decided to end it here since it seemed as good a place as any and I’ve been sort of out of it in terms of writing. Fell down the rabbit hole of binge-watching Stargate SG-1 (I’m currently on the 5th episode of Season 9) and haven’t gotten much writing done lately as a result. So, since I had this much written, I figured I’d post it since something is better than nothing.


	7. Stoneship Age, Part Two

Journey into the Ages  
By J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Chapter Seven:  
Stoneship Age, Part Two

-o-0-o-

It didn’t take long for the boys to find the linking book, which was resting atop of chair in the small cabin of the formerly sunken ship. Opening the book, Harry went first, followed by Cedric, then Roger, and finally Blaise.

“Well, Stoneship is an apt name,” Harry said, once they were all standing on the deck of the ship.

“Indeed,” Blaise agreed, as he looked around. “No sign of any people though.”

Nodding, Roger said, “Yes, that does seem rather odd, considering that according to Atrus’s journals, both Channelwood and Stoneship are supposed to be inhabited… and yet, there was nobody there or here.”

“Maybe they drowned?” Cedric asked.

“What makes you say that?” Harry wondered.

“Assuming that these stairways lead to living quarters,” Cedric said, as he pointed towards a stairway to his left that led down a flight of stairs and another to his right that led into a cave, “they’re both flooded.”

“True,” Blaise said. “I’m guessing the lighthouse has also sunk quite a bit more since the last time Atrus was here and updated his journal. Seeing as how there’s no sign of the island it was built upon and I somehow doubt that he built it with a window that close to the top of it as the only entrance.”

Looking at the lighthouse, the others nodded as they noted the gangplank that led from the ship over to the lighthouse was positioned so that it went through a broken window. They all assumed that it was a makeshift entrance to the structure, that had presumably replaced the actual door at some point, once the island and the lighthouse had sunk far enough.

The window in question was just underneath the balcony that surrounded the lamp room at the top of the lighthouse, after all, so either it was built as a very short lighthouse, or it had sunk quite substantially.

Walking over the lighthouse and carefully going inside of it Cedric came out a few minutes later and said, “There’s a ladder leading up to a padlocked trapdoor in the ceiling. There is a key but it’s chained to the floor at the bottom of the ladder on a chain that’s too short to reach the padlock.”

“Another puzzle I’m guessing,” Roger said.

Cedric nodded. “Yeah, probably. There’s a circular staircase leading down into the flooded depths. Using a Bubblehead Charm I stuck my head under the water. At the bottom of the stairs is an old trunk. I also saw what I’m guessing was the bricked up original door and a few more windows. I’m guessing the entire building has sunk about thirty feet since it was built.”

“Even with what’s still visible above water, that would have been a pretty short lighthouse, wouldn’t it?” Roger asked.

Harry nodded. “They can vary in height, as it depends on how big the island it was built on was. If, for example, the island itself was thirty feet above the water, the tower could have been shorter.”

“Is there any way that we can raise the lighthouse with magic?” Blaise asked.

“There are spells that could do it, yes,” Cedric said. “However, they usually require multiple witches or wizards working in concert, as they’re pretty power intensive. Even if all four of us knew the spell like the back of our hands, I’m not sure we’d have enough power.”

“Well, it was a thought,” Blaise said, as he looked around for a moment before asking, “what is that?”

Looking where Blaise was pointing the others noticed that on the opposite side of the ship from the lighthouse, two gangplanks led out to a crow’s nest on a rock. It had an open umbrella affixed to the top of it.

“Well, one way to find out,” Harry said, as he carefully made his way over and examined it. Calling out to the others, he said, “There are three large buttons here. Shall I press one and see if it does anything?”

“Might as well,” Roger called out.

Nodding, Harry picked one at random which turned out to be the rightmost of the three. Almost immediately there was a noise which Harry quickly realized was a pump. Calling out to the others, he said, “It’s a pump control. Check the stairs and the lighthouse, have any of them drained?”

Roger checked the stairs that led down into the cave and indicated that it was still flooded. Blaise confirmed that the stairs down into what appeared to be the ship’s cabin was also still flooded. Cedric, however, called out, “The lighthouse is drained.”

“Cool,” Harry said, as he pressed the middle button and heard the pumping noise again.

“The water’s been drained from the stairs down into the cave,” Roger called out. “Although the stairs are very dark as the lights on the ceiling aren’t lit.”

A moment later, Cedric called out, “And the lighthouse is flooded again.”

“Huh,” Harry said. “Apparently there’s only enough power for the pumps to clear out one section at a time. So, let’s see here, the right-hand button drains the lighthouse, the middle one drains the cave, so the left-hand one must drain the ship’s cabin.”

Deciding to test his hypothesis, he pressed it and called out, “Hey Blaise? Are the cabin stairs drained now?”

“Yup, they are,” Blaise called out, before Cedric confirmed that the lighthouse was still flooded and Roger confirmed that the cave had re-flooded.

Turning around and looking back at the lighthouse, Harry noticed several power cables moving away from the top of the lighthouse and hypothesized that the generator that would turn on the lights in the cave must be in the lighthouse. So, turning back to the pump controls, Harry pressed the button to drain the lighthouse.

“Okay, Cedric, go down and inspect that trunk you saw,” Harry called out. “I’ll keep the lighthouse pumped out until you’re back.”

“Okay,” Cedric called out before he made his way carefully down the winding staircase which was more than a little bit treacherous in his mind, seeing as how it lacked a railing on the side opposite the wall.

Finally reaching the bottom, he found that the trunk was locked, but since he was a wizard, he pulled out his wand and said, “ ** _Alohomora!_** ”

Hearing the satisfying click of the lock, Cedric opened the trunk to find a single gold key floating inside the trunk which was full of water. Taking the key, Cedric noted the presence of a spigot on one side of the trunk, which he turned causing all in the water in the trunk to drain out.

Closing the valve again, he had a feeling he knew what the object of this puzzle was, but testing it out would have to wait until he got back upstairs. Making his way carefully back upstairs, Cedric called out to Harry that he was back. A moment later, the pumps could be heard as the water filled back up.

Just as Cedric had expected, with the trunk drained of the water inside of it, it floated up to the top so that it was right next to the key that was chained to the floor. Roger appeared at the window to the lighthouse at this point, his wand pointed skyward with a translucent magical umbrella visible that rain was cascading down the sides of. It had apparently started to rain while Cedric was down in the lighthouse.

“So what was at the bottom?” Roger asked.

“That trunk, which I’m guessing the key on the chain unlocks,” Cedric answered. “Of course, I cheated and used the Unlocking Charm on it downstairs. Other than a bunch of water, the only thing in it was this key,” which he held up, “that I’m guessing unlocks the padlock on the trapdoor in the ceiling.”

“Well, try it and find out,” Blaise said, as he came up behind Roger, also holding his wand up with the Umbrella Charm active. “Harry has pumped out the cave since according to the journal, that was where the boys supposedly lived. We’re hoping there’s a bed there so that we can wait out the rain.”

Cedric grinned, as he remembered what Roger had told Harry about the next bed they found. Reaching up with the key, Cedric put it in the lock and turned, happy to see that he was right. The padlock would have fallen into the water below as it opened, but thanks to Cedric’s seeker reflexes, he caught both it and the key that unlocked it.

Never knowing when a padlock and key might come in handy, Cedric opened the flap of his messenger bag and stored them away, before opening the trapdoor and climbing up the ladder. Taking a quick look around, he then knelt down and put his head through the door as he said, “Tell Harry to come up here.”

Two minutes later, Harry joined Cedric at the top of the lighthouse, as the elder teen asked, “I’m assuming that thing is a generator?”

“Yeah, it’s rather old-fashioned,” Harry said, “but I think if you turn the crank on the front it’ll generate electricity which will then be stored in those batteries.”

Examining the batteries, he said, “Looks like there’s an indicator which denotes who much charge they’re holding.”

Turning the crank, Harry nodded and pointed as a blue line began slowly moving up the indicator as he turned. As he was doing that, Roger called up, “The lights in the cave have come on and Blaise says that the light on the roof of the lighthouse has started flashing.”

Harry continued turning the generator crank until the battery indicator was full. “Okay, well, that should do it. Don’t know how much time that’ll give us, but we should be able to explore the cave now.”

As he stood up, he grinned at Cedric and said, “And hopefully there’ll be a bed down there.”

“Eager for Roger to claim your arse are you?” Cedric asked.

“Do snitches fly?”

Cedric just laughed, as he motioned towards the ladder, wordlessly telling Harry to climb down first.

-o-0-o-

As the four teens made their way down the stairs inside the cave, they did see a glowing red square near the floor. It was on an indentation in the wall which they were pretty sure led to some kind of crawlspace. They decided to ignore it for the time being, however, as they were getting hungry for both food and sex… not necessarily in that order.

Thus, they figured they’d explore it later because they were pretty sure that if there was a bedroom here, it wouldn’t be accessed via a crawlspace.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, they found a large metal door that appeared to be watertight, suggesting that even when the cave was flooded the room beyond it was not. The door had no visible handle, but there was a glowing green circle in the center.

Pushing his hand against it, Harry smiled as the door slid up to reveal a richly appointed room which if their hypothesis from Channelwood was correct was probably Sirrus’s bedroom, as he seemed to have very expensive and refined tastes compared to Achenar, who seemed to prefer a more utilitarian and macabre aesthetic.

Of course, this room was even more richly appointed than the room in Channelwood had been. Of course, the room in Channelwood had still been located inside a treehouse. There was probably only so much a person could do with a room that could only be accessed by a narrow winding wooden staircase or a pair of elevators that had clearly not been designed to hold much more than two people at a time.

“Well, this is a very nice room,” Blaise said, and then, even though he already knew the answer, he asked, “So, explore, eat, or sex first?”

The other three looked at him with matching looks that clearly asked, “You’re really asking that?”

Blaise grinned. “Right, stupid question.” Turning back towards the door and realizing that it was still open he said, “Well, maybe a little exploration… at least enough to figure out if we can close and lock the door.”

“Hmm, yes, that makes sense,” Cedric said. “Hopefully there’s also some means of preventing anyone from using the pumps to re-flood the stairs into this room.”

“Good point,” Roger said. “At least we know that door truly is a watertight door since this carpet is bone dry, which means we don’t have to worry about this room flooding along with the stairs.”

Walking over to the open door, Harry examined the walls nearby, pulling out his wand and lighting the tip for a bit of extra illumination, as the area was a bit dark. After a moment, he found three buttons, one which closed the door and the second which caused a series of heavy iron bolts to slide through iron loops welded to the door, effectively locking it from the inside.

The third button was labeled with a picture depicting the umbrella-covered pump control with a large red x over it.

Pushing it, Harry said, “Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I think this might deactivate the pump, preventing the stairs from being flooded while we’re down here.”

“It would make sense,” Roger said. “One can assume that Sirrus wouldn’t want anyone trapping him down here by flooding the stairs.”

Turning and grinning at his boyfriends, Harry said, “Well, now that that’s taken care of, I’m sure we can find a way to make good use of that bed.”

“Oh yes, that we definitely can,” Roger said, as he came up behind Harry and rubbed his hard cock against the younger teen’s arse. “So, foreplay first or shall we move right to the main event.”

Blaise’s stomach growled before anyone could say anything, prompting him to say, “The main event, I think.”

“Works for me,” Cedric said, as they all removed their messenger bags and set them aside before they began stripping out of their clothes.

Roger was delayed taking off his clothes as he walked over to the small desk and put his bag on top of it, before opening it and rummaging through it for a moment, before pulling out a box of condoms.

“Damn good thing there’s no laws of elemental transfiguration that prevents the unlimited duplication of condoms,” Roger said as he opened the box. “Or else we’d have a problem if we couldn’t visit a store to buy more.”

“True,” Harry agreed. “I don’t think any of us want a teenage pregnancy before we’ve even finished Hogwarts.”

“Indeed,” Blaise said. “I do want children at some point, but I want to finish Hogwarts, get a mastery or two, and establish myself in my career before I start a family.”

The others nodded in agreement. Five years ago when Harry had first entered the wizarding world he’d had no idea that wizards could get pregnant. Needless to say, it had come as something of a shock when he found out… not that he was upset by it, considering that he found out right around the time he also realized that he was gay.

“Yes, thank Merlin that you managed to get those condoms, Harry,” Cedric said with a grin. “Or we’d have been royally screwed this year and not in a fun way since once Umbitch took over, we had no means of getting the birth control potion.”

“And we have no means of brewing it here,” Blaise said, “unless we find an apothecary that stocks some of the very rare, specialty ingredients.”

“Which is rather doubtful,” Harry said, as he blushed and shook his head as he remembered how embarrassed he’d been when obtaining the box of condoms and how overjoyed he’d been upon learning that they could be magically duplicated infinitum. Thus saving him from said embarrassment a second time.

Of course, it also saved him from risking getting caught obtaining them again, as he had a feeling that his aunt and uncle would not have been pleased to find him getting them. They would no doubt have been very much against the idea of Harry being sexually active as they would be against the idea of a freak, as they would say, reproducing.

Not to mention the fact that it also came with the very real possibility of them finding out that he had zero intention of using them with a girl, which would have opened a whole other can of worms that he really didn’t want to have to deal with.

As Blaise pushed his underwear down, he looked at the others and said, “So, Rog has already claimed Harry’s arse, but while he’s doing that, could I be in the middle today?”

“You want to top?” Cedric asked.

Shaking his head from side to side, “No, but I am in the mood to be in the middle today, while both you and Harry fuck me.”

“Oh,” Cedric said, before grinning and saying, “Well, I’m game if Harry is.”

“Fine by me,” Harry said, with a grin of his own, as he bent over so that Roger could cast the lubrication charm on his arse.

“Well, then bend over, Blaise,” Cedric said, as he pulled out his wand and cast the same charm on the black teen’s arse, followed by a spell which was specifically meant to make double penetration easier.

With both Harry and Blaise prepared, Cedric laid down on his back in the center of the bed, unwrapped a condom and placed over his length, at which point Blaise came over and straddled his hips.

“Oh, Ric, I love your cock,” Blaise said, as he guided the head of Cedric’s cock into his hole and rocked his hips slightly, as he pushed down until the older teen’s entire length was inside of him.

“And I love your arse,” Cedric said with a grin, as he pushed himself up on his elbows and pressed a quick kiss to Blaise’s lips.

Riding Cedric’s cock for about a minute and Roger and Harry watched, their own cocks getting even harder in the process, Blaise finally moved so that his chest and abs were flush with Cedric’s, before he said, “Okay, Harry, come on in and join Ric.”

“With pleasure,” Harry said, as he rolled a condom over his own cock before he knelt on the bed between Cedric’s legs and positioned himself at the opening of Blaise’s hole, before carefully pushing forward. Between the two spells cast on Blaise’s arse, it wasn’t long before Harry’s cock was all the way in and cocooned in the warmth that was Blaise’s arse.

“Oh sweet Merlin, that’s so hot,” Roger said, as he watched Harry and Cedric get into a rhythm, as they both fucked Blaise at the same time.

After another minute or so, Harry leaned down so that his chest and abs were flush with Blaise’s back, as he said, “Come and claim your prize, Rog,” before he kissed Cedric on the lips, as they each wrapped their arms around each other’s backs, sandwiching Blaise between them.

Roger grinned as he rolled a condom over his length. “With pleasure.”

“Mine or yours?” Harry asked his tone an interesting mix of cocky, irreverent, and seductive.

“A little of both, I imagine,” Roger answered, as he positioned himself at Harry’s opening and pushed forward.

He hadn’t done anything to prepare Harry other than casting the lubrication charm, but the benefit of the spell was that served both functions, lubricating and properly preparing the orifice. Many couples still did physical preparation as part of foreplay, at least when they chose to engage in it.

Harry, Cedric, Blaise, and Roger did choose to do so sometimes, but other times, like this one, they were so painfully horny for each other that they just wanted to get straight to the main event. Teenage hormones and all.

As Roger seated his cock all the way in, Blaise reached back with his hands and grabbed Roger’s arse cheeks. Massaging the muscular mounds of flesh, each time Roger reached the point of being half in and half out of Harry, Blaise would pull him back. Neither Roger nor Harry were complaining and Blaise loved it because every thrust Roger made into Harry’s arse pushed Harry’s cock deeper into his own, alongside Cedric’s, which was driving him absolutely wild.

As the four teens continued fucking at a slow and steady pace—despite their hormones begging them to speed it up they kept it slow and steady to prolong it as long as possible—Harry and Cedric kissed each other on the lips, as Blaise kissed and sucked on Cedric’s neck and Roger did the same to Harry’s back and shoulders.

After several minutes, Cedric spread his arms out on the bed and Blaise took the opportunity to lace his fingers with the Hufflepuff’s. Harry smiled and did the same not long before Roger joined them. Thus, a few minutes later, as Blaise climaxed, shooting his load between his and Cedric’s stomachs, and Harry, Cedric, and Roger filled their respective condoms, the four boys' fingers were all interlaced tightly.

They hadn’t really had the talk yet, even though they all knew that they were no longer just friends with benefits as they’d once described themselves. Well, Harry and Cedric didn’t describe themselves that way, as they’d been dating for a while before Roger and Blaise joined them. It was, however, how they’d chosen to define the foursome they’d become after their plans for a one-night stand fell through.

While none of them would ever utter it aloud, they were to a certain point grateful to Umbridge. If she hadn’t placed the four of them together in the Room of Hidden Things, their relationship probably would have stayed the casual thing it had been. It was only being forced to be together all day, every day which had really started feelings to develop.

Of course, none of them wanted to be grateful to that witch of a woman for anything, so they all rationalized that given enough time, the feelings would have happened naturally on their own. Hogwarts being turned into a prison may have sped things up, but if their relationship hadn’t already been moving in that direction, even if they didn’t realize it, they probably wouldn’t be in this position now.

Once they’d caught their breath, they used magic to clean up and vanish the used condoms, before crawling under the covers of the bed and falling asleep.

-o-0-o-

Harry woke up a couple hours later to find himself lying on the bed being spooned by Roger, while Blaise was lying on his stomach in front of him. There was no sign of Cedric in the bed, however, which Harry rather hoped meant that he’d gotten up and had successfully found the bathroom.

As much as he didn’t want to risk waking Roger or Blaise, he had to get out of bed, because his bladder was practically screaming at him right now about its need to be emptied. Of course, when he tried to carefully extricate himself from Roger’s arms, it didn’t work so well, as the sleeping Ravenclaw refused to let go.

“Morning Harry,” Cedric said as he came over and noticed that Harry’s eyes were open.

“Hey,” Harry said. “So is there a bathroom here like in the hut in Channelwood?”

“Yes, there is,” Cedric confirmed. “I just finished using it.”

“Oh thank Merlin,” Harry said. “Could you do me a big favor and distract Roger so that he’ll let me go? I really need to use the loo.”

Cedric grinned and nodded, before he slid into bed behind Roger and spooned him from behind, pulling at his arms as he did so. The Ravenclaw resisted slightly but it did loosen his grip enough for Harry to shimmy out of his grip.

“It’s through there,” Cedric said, pointing at the arched alcove to the left of the bed that held a pair of potted plants and a large, fancy highboy dresser. “There’s a door to the bathroom to the right.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, as he hurried away from the bed and into the room in question. He soon sighed in relief as he was able to relieve himself, sure that even a few seconds longer and he’d have been giving Blaise the kind of unpleasant wakeup call that the Slytherin would most assuredly be cursing him for… both verbally and magically.

Blaise hurried into the room just as Harry began washing his hands. They exchanged quick pleasantries before Harry left the room, almost running into Roger on the way out. Harry wasn’t all that surprised that Roger had woken up since all four of them were still starkers from their activities before bed. So, considering that Roger generally preferred topping, he probably came to pretty quickly once Cedric’s cock was nestled against his arse.

Leaving the bathroom, Harry found Cedric sitting on the edge of the bed, now wearing his Hufflepuff-themed boxer-briefs… one of the many items of clothing in the school spirit collection that the school bookstore had started selling to the embarrassment of some and the delight of others. T-shirts, hoodies, sweat pants, tracksuits, and socks were just some of the other options.

For Hufflepuff, they came in both yellow with a black waistband and black with a yellow waistband. Both in turn had the word Hufflepuff written front and center on the waistband.

Picking up his own pair—in red with a metallic gold waistband that said Gryffindor—Harry slipped them on before sitting down on the bed next to Cedric to put on his socks.

They’d each put on one sock, when Cedric said, “Hey, that’s mine,” as Harry had stopped paying attention to what he was doing. He had a very good reason for this, however, as Blaise had finished up in the bathroom and come out to get dressed. He was currently bending over to pick up his own underwear from the floor and putting his very nice arse on full display.

“Whoops,” Harry said as he handed Cedric the sock that was mostly black except for the yellow toe and heel.

Cedric just grinned. “It’s okay, too busy ogling the view.”

Harry blushed slightly and nodded, as he picked up his own sock—identical to Cedric’s only with red replacing the yellow—and put in on. Of course, he was also thinking back to a few hours ago when his and Cedric’s dicks were both inside of Blaise’s arse… which had his morning wood which had deflated while he was in the bathroom standing back at attention.

Putting on his own underwear and turning around, Blaise grinned as he saw the very obvious tent in the front of Harry’s underwear. Coming over and placing his hands on Harry’s knees, Blaise leaned over so that their faces were level and asked, “Need some help with that?”

“If you’re offering.”

Blaise smiled, before he dropped down to his knees, pulled down the top of Harry’s underwear to free his cock, and began sucking on it.

Placing one hand on Blaise’s shoulder and the other on the back of his head, Harry moaned and said, “Oh, yes, Blaise, that feels so good.”

Blaise didn’t answer, as we was rather busy at the moment, although he did give Harry a thumbs up to indicate that he’d heard and was happy to oblige.

Cedric began rubbing his own quickly hardening cock through the fabric of his underwear as he watched Blaise bobbing up and down on Harry’s cock. Seeing Roger exiting the bathroom out of the corner of his eye, Cedric said, “Hey Rog, can you give me a hand here? Or more accurately a mouth?”

Seeing what was going on, Roger, who’d picked up his underwear on the way into the bathroom and put them on after he’d finished, said nothing and instead just came over, dropped onto his knees in front of Cedric and began giving him a morning blowjob.

It wasn’t long before Roger and Blaise were both hard as well, which prompted them to stop what they were doing midway through. Harry and Cedric didn’t complain, however, as they knew what was happening. Standing up, all four of them having pushed their underwear down to their knees to give each other better access.

Roger and Cedric then moved so that they were lying on the bed, facing in opposite directions, before Blaise and Harry approached the bed from different sides. Harry’s hardened cock was soon in Cedric’s mouth as he sucked on Roger’s dick, while Blaise’s cock was in Roger’s mouth, as he sucked on Cedric’s dick.

-o-0-o-

About half-an-hour later, after finishing up, all four boys were dressed and had begun exploring the room. In addition to the bathroom, the dresser alcove also had a walk-in closet on the opposite side. Across the room, in the alcove that held a desk, there were two more rooms.

One was a kitchen and the other was best described as a wood room, as it was stocked with firewood, undoubtedly used to power the kitchen’s wood-burning stove.

The kitchen was stocked and while the boys vanished the moldy or otherwise spoiled food, they did manage to stock up on various preserved foodstuffs. This included some canned fruits and vegetables in mason jars, as well as fresh herbs and spices that were growing in pots on one side of the room.

They weren’t sure exactly how long it had been since anyone was here, but that didn’t seem to matter as the plants in question had an automated irrigation system and sun lamp which seemed to run independently of the stairwell lights that were powered by the generator in the lighthouse. Roger hypothesized that there was some kind of geothermal energy at work, considering that they’d found a hot spring in the bathroom.

The boys hadn’t used said hot spring yet, but all of them agreed that until they found lodging on Myst, they’d make Stoneship their home base, so they knew they would be in time. It was because of this decision that when they later found the Age’s linking book back to Myst in the ship’s cabin, that they decided to leave behind the book they’d found at Hogwarts. Thus, Stoneship would continue to have a link back to Myst, although it would now be to the dock instead of the library.

From Sirrus’s room, they took the red page that they found in the dresser of the main room, but opted to leave everything else alone. This included the bolts of fabric they’d found in one of the dresser drawers, the gold and silver coins in another, and the candles, china dinnerware, and crystal stemware from another.

They figured there wasn’t much point in taking the fabric as they had plenty of clothes to wear for the time being. And if they did run out, it seemed that Sirrus was about the same size as them, so if worse came to worse, they could borrow his clothes, of which there were plenty between the walk-in closets in Channelwood and Stoneship. That would certainly be easier than using the fabric to make their own clothes.

As for the gold and silver coins, again they didn’t see much point in carrying them around with them since they’d yet to find an inhabited age with a store where they might actually be able to use the coins.

The same could in turn also be said for the candles, dinnerware, and stemware, although they did move them into an empty cabinet in the kitchen. Since they were making this their home base, it made far more sense to just leave the stuff here for their use, rather than carrying it around with them.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there’s Ch7 of ‘Journey into the Ages’. Next chapter the boys will finish up their initial exploration of Stoneship by exploring Achenar’s room and return to Myst with the red and blue pages. We’ll also discover if that restoration charm that was cast on the puzzle book revealed anything interesting.


	8. Back to Myst

Journey into the Ages  
By J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Chapter Eight:  
Back to Myst

-o-0-o-

Exploration of Sirrus’s bedroom turned up one more thing of note… the desk drawer had a large number of pills, syringes, and a variety of vials to fill them. Curiosity piqued, Roger pulled out his wand and cast a spell to see if he could identify what they were.

“Hmm,” Roger said after a minute. “The pills are rather innocuous. They’re registering as a combination of aspirin and acetaminophen.”

“And the vials?” Blaise asked.

“These three,” Roger pointed at the three vials that were lying on their sides in a special drawer insert to hold them, the pills, and a syringe, “are full of water laced with cocaine.”

“And these three?” Harry asked, motioning towards the three bottles that were standing upright.

“Amphetamines,” Roger answered. “So, I’m guessing that Sirrus was into recreational drug use. There are medical uses for both of them, but judging by the residue left in the syringes, it appears he was injecting dosages much higher than what would be used for medical reasons.”

Cedric nodded. “Well, I doubt we have much if any use for the cocaine and amphetamines, but the pills would be useful for pain, like from headaches or muscle aches. Also, for reducing fever, should any of us get one. Since we don’t have any headache potions or the like with us.”

Roger, Harry, and Blaise nodded but otherwise said nothing as Roger put away his wand and closed the desk drawer, as Harry moved over to the door and pushed the button that had disengaged the pumps. He didn’t, however, unlock the watertight door, as they’d talked and decided that Roger and Cedric would apparate Harry and Blaise in and out of the room… at least until they’d taught the younger two how to do it themselves.

Thus, if anyone else did link to Stoneship, or if any of the people that had according to Atrus’s journal lived in Stoneship turned up, they wouldn’t be able to get in to their home base. Since they’d decided to apparate in and out of the room, however, they decided that they’d re-flood the stairs after exploring Achenar’s bedroom, as an extra level of security.

Not knowing if any of the inhabitants that Atrus had mentioned had magical ability, they did decide to put a detection charm on the large, central room of Sirrus’s suite to alert them if anyone apparated into the room. They weren’t entirely sure if it would work if they were on a different age, however, so they’d have to do a bit of testing.

“From what I know about the D’ni,” Cedric had said after he and Roger had cast it, “the different Ages are essentially all their own worlds. So, it is possible that it won’t work, as I’m not sure we’re powerful enough for our magic to work between worlds.”

Nodding, Roger had said, “True, but it doesn’t hurt to try it. If it doesn’t work then we haven’t lost anything and if it does, well, then we’ve got an added layer of security, beyond the door being locked from the inside and the stairs being flooded.”

When they’d made the decision to leave the linking book back to Myst’s dock in Stoneship, they’d opted to place it in Sirrus’s room, instead of leaving it in the ship’s cabin.

Looking around the room, Blaise said, “Okay, anything else before we set out to explore Achenar’s bedroom?”

“No, I think that’s everything,” Roger said. “We moved the china and stemware into the kitchen last night. And moved the bolts of fabric into Sirrus’s walk-in this morning.”

With the fabric, china, and stemware removed from the fancy highboy dresser, it’s four large drawers were now empty. So, as they’d decided to make Stoneship their home base, the boys decided to make use of the dresser to store their clothes. Cedric used magic to expand each of the drawers and then they each claimed one of them.

Once all of their clothes were put away, Roger put security charms on the drawers so that only the four of them would be able to open any of the drawers… including the two small drawers full of gold and silver coins, jewelry, and loose gemstones.

Taking their trunks out of their messenger bags, they took them into Sirrus’s walk-in closet and unshrunk them, deciding to leave them there. Their messenger bags had charms to reduce the weight of the contents of the bag. However, having less stuff in their bags would also make it easier to find things, so leaving their trunks and clothes at their chosen home base only made sense.

Cedric placed an Anti-Apparition Jinx that would only affect the interior of the walk-in closet and they then used magic to lock the door in and out of the room. Roger did the same in the kitchen to protect their food and water supply. It was perhaps overkill, considering that they’d be leaving the watertight door locked and planned to re-flood the stairs, but they figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

Done, for now, Cedric and Roger moved to the center of the main room and held out their off-arms. Harry took Cedric’s and Blaise took Roger’s, the four of them disapparated. Moments later, they reappeared at the cave entrance and found that it was still pouring rain outside.

“You know, if it keeps raining like this,” Harry said, “eventually all these islands and possibly even the ship is going to sink.”

“Probably,” Blaise said. “I mean it’s been raining practically non-stop since we arrived. Light enough to be barely noticeable when we arrived, but it soon started pouring.”

“If it ever stopped overnight,” Cedric said as looked out at the rain, “it’s restarted pouring now.”

“We could maybe try some Weather-Modifying Charms,” Roger said. “If we can stop this rain, then at least we can move around without getting wet. Even with the Umbrella Spell, my clothes still got a bit damp last night from the wind blowing the rain at me. Nothing a few Drying Charms couldn’t fix, but still.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Cedric said, as he pulled out his wand and pointed it skyward. “I think this is probably natural rain, but, just in case… **_Meteolojinx Recanto!_** ”

A minute later, when the rain hadn’t stopped, Harry nodded and said, “Yup, natural.”

“Apparently,” Cedric said before he concentrated on the sky and incanted, “ ** _Meteolosolem!_** ”

A spiral of bright yellow light shot from the tip of Cedric’s wand into the clouds above, causing them to part and stop raining, although only in an area of about twenty to thirty feet in either direction. The cleared sky was right above the cave entrance, however, so they were at least able to step out onto the deck of the ship without umbrellas.

“Hmm, needs a bit more power, I guess,” Cedric said as he pointed skyward again at an area of the sky that hadn’t cleared and said, “ ** _Meteolosolem Maxima!_** ”

The spiral of bright yellow light that shot from the tip of Cedric’s wand this time was much denser and brighter. Soon the clouds parted and it stopped raining an additional hundred feet in every direction, as the sun shined brightly down upon the lighthouse, jagged rocks, and ship below.

“Much better,” Blaise said. “Well, now shall we go explore Achenar’s room?”

“Yes,” Roger said, although he paused for a moment and said. “Although first, we should probably charge up the batteries in the lighthouse, as the stairwell lights weren’t turned on.”

Nodding, Harry said, “Yes, and we had to light the candles in Sirrus’s room this morning to see anything. Not sure how much charge those batteries actually hold, but they clearly ran out overnight.”

“We did extinguish all the candles right?” Blaise asked.

“I’ll apparate back and double-check,” Roger answered. “Cedric, can you handle the generator so that I’ve got some light?”

Cedric nodded, as he apparated up to the lamp room of the lighthouse and cranked the generator until the indicator on the batteries was full again. As soon as the stairwell lights turned back on, Roger apparated back down to Sirrus’s room—well, their room now—and double-checked to make sure there were no candles still lit.

When he returned a few minutes later, he said, “There were a few still lit in the bathroom and kitchen, so thanks for thinking of that, Blaise.”

The black teen nodded, but said nothing, as the four of them moved over to the other cave entrance that they assumed would lead down to Achenar’s room.

Halfway down, they found another glowing red square on a panel, but they again decided to ignore it for the moment as they continued down the stairs. Blaise reached the door first and touching the glowing green button, the four boys shuddered as they got their first look at Achenar’s room.

“It’s official,” Cedric said. “Achenar has very bad taste in décor.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, as he noted the light fixture on the opposite side of the room, directly across from the watertight door.

It was a light affixed to what appeared to be a human spine, illuminating the still attached rib cage.

Like the room they’d claimed, the room had wood-paneled, floors, walls, and ceiling. A variety of tribal masks were hung on the walls, along with a large number of antlers. None of them wanted to spend much time in the room, but they still decided to conduct a thorough search, as this room at least was larger than Achenar’s room in Channelwood.

To the left of the rib cage light, atop a table, Blaise found a few bottles that were marked with a skull and crossbones, naturally leading him to believe they contained poison.

“Found the blue page,” Harry said with a grimace, as he picked up the page from where it was on Achenar’s bed. Unlike his bed in Channelwood which was a small cot consisting of leather straps attached to a wooden frame, this one had enough room that all four of them could probably sleep on it.

Of course, Harry had no intention of sleeping in this room and he was sure the others would agree with him. Not only was the décor more than a bit macabre, but the bed also had no sheets or blankets covering the mattress, which was stained in several places. Harry didn’t really want to know what the stains were.

Turning away from the bed, he saw that Cedric had found a holographic projector sitting atop a tall dresser. It projected an image of a rose. Although as Harry moved closer, Cedric moved a lever on the projector which caused the rose to morph into a human skull.

Shaking his head, Cedric said, “Okay, I much prefer the rose,” as he moved the lever back to where it had been when he turned it on.

“Yeah, so do I,” Roger said, who’d looked over, as he searched for any hidden doors.

There were four extra rooms in Sirrus’s old room, after all, a bathroom, kitchen, walk-in closet, and wood storage room, so they assumed that the same would hold true for Achenar’s room.

After some searching, he found a hidden switch in the mouth of one of the tribal masks decorating the wall, which made one of the panels recess and then slide back. It led into a short hallway with three rooms.

One was a small bathroom, far less nice than one in Sirrus’s room, as it consisted only of a shower stall, a sink, and a non-flushing privy. Across from the bathroom was a small closet that held Achenar’s clothing.

The third room at the end of the hall was a kitchen. A pile of wood was stacked next to a wood-burning stove, and there was far more moldy and spoiled food here than there had been in Sirrus’s kitchen. There was no herb garden, but then it seemed that unlike Sirrus who had stocked lots of base ingredients better suited to cooking meals, Achenar preferred canned goods.

He had no idea where he’d gotten them from, but then was probably some sort of post-industrial age with a store where they could be obtained. Most of the cans seemed to be canned beans and franks, but there were also a couple of cans of chicken and tuna. As well as several tins of sardines.

Moving back out to the main room, he found Cedric looking through the drawers of the tall dresser that the holographic projector was sitting on top of.

“Anything interesting?” Roger asked.

“Maps, maps, and more maps,” Cedric said, as he pulled the drawers open one by one and found that each drawer contained a different map.

He wasn’t sure what they were, but he carefully took each one, rolled it up, and placed it in his bag. Once he left this room, he really never wanted to come back, so he figured he’d take the maps with him so that they could study them later.

In the second to last drawer from the bottom, he finally found something that wasn’t a map, but a torn note. Picking it up, Cedric looked at it for a moment, before he said, “Hey Rog, I think this is the other half of the note we found in Sirrus’s room in Channelwood.”

Coming over to stand next to Cedric, Roger looked at it for a moment, before he nodded and said, “Yeah, I think you’re right. Hang on a tic,” as he opened his bag and started digging through it for a moment before he pulled the torn note out and handed it to Cedric.

Cedric held the two pieces together as Roger pulled out his wand and mumbled, “ ** _Reparo!_** ”

The two pieces were soon only a single sheet of paper as the tear knitted itself back together and disappeared.

“Well, let’s see what we have here,” Cedric said. “Rog, can you give me some more light?”

Roger nodded as he held his wand tip near the top of the page and said, “ ** _Lumos!_** ”

Cedric then proceeded to read the note aloud.

> **_Marker Switch Vault Access_ **
> 
> **_Age of Myst_ **
> 
> **_The vault is located in very plain view on the Main Island of Myst, and access can be very easily achieved if these simple instructions are followed. First, locate each of the Marker Switches on the island. Turn every one of these switches to the “on” position. Then go to the dock and, as a final step, turn the Marker Switch there to the “off” position._ **

“Huh, interesting,” Harry said from his place to Cedric’s left. “I guess that’ll be something to check out back on Myst.”

Cedric put the repaired note in his bag and checking the final drawer, found another map, which he rolled up and put in his bag with the others.

“I think that’s everything,” Cedric said, as he took one final look around the room. “Now let’s get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps.”

Harry, Blaise, and Roger nodded, as they left the room. Going back up to the surface, they saw that Cedric’s spell had held, making the weather clear and sunny with no rain. Going over to the pump control, Harry pressed the button to pump the lighthouse, knowing that would re-flood the stairs down into the two bedrooms.

As soon as the pumps shut off, Cedric decided to test something and apparated back down to their new suite. Pushing the button near the door that had a picture of the crossed-out pump control, he apparated back up to the deck of the ship.

“Press the button for the bedroom stairs and see if it works,” Cedric said and Harry nodded.

Pressing the button, Harry said, after a moment, “Nothing happens, so I guess that button really does deactivate the pump.”

“Good, well, then our new base should be safe from anyone that doesn’t have magic,” Blaise said. “As the stairs are flooded, the pumps deactivated, and the watertight door is barred from the inside.”

-o-0-o-

It was only after they were all back on Myst that they realized that they’d never explored the recessed panels in the stairwells down to the two bedrooms. But, they knew they’d be returning there soon enough, so they weren’t overly worried for the time being.

Heading down to the dock, Blaise flipped the marker switch into the off position. Once he did so, the front of the pedestal that the switch was on opened up to reveal a small cabinet inside.

“Hmm, a single white page,” Blaise said, as he took the page.

Thinking back to Channelwood, Harry cocked his head and asked, “In that message that Sirrus recorded on Achenar’s holo-imager didn’t he tell Achenar to take only one page?”

Cedric nodded after a second and said, “Yes, he did, come to think of it. I imagine this must be the page in question. Presumably, it’s out of another book, similar to the red and blue pages, but which book it’s from is the question.”

Placing the page in his bag, Blaise said, “Well, I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually. For the time being, let’s head up to the library. See what Sirrus and Achenar have to say and check if the restoration charm had any effect on the puzzle book.”

-o-0-o-

Walking into the library, Roger moved over to the red Spire book. Cedric, Blaise, and Harry stood just out of range, close enough that they’d be able to hear Sirrus talking, but far enough away that Roger would be the only one he’d actually be able to see.

Opening the front cover of the book, Roger laid the red page on the book and watched as it magically reattached itself to the spine. A second later, the linking panel came to life, still full of static, but it did seem to be reducing with each new red page added back to the book.

**_“Ah, you have returned … additional … page … free from my prison on this forgotten Island of Myst… I see that you are… I am called Sirrus, for… I need all the red pages. I need… You must search … bring … two more of the red pages …_ **

**_“I am released, I promise you … warn you, don't touch the blue pages … that is where my … for my wicked brother, Achenar… He is a man of distorted mind and senses. He disgusts me…_ **

**_“Do not release Achenar … thirst for destruction is not … never-ending … bring the red pages … I beg you … please release me from this prison. I promise you will be greatly rewarded … you must help me … beg you to help me._ **

**_“Also avoid… my treacherous younger… Kyran, for it, was him… who trapped me… here… this prison. Tore the… pages from the book… hid them. You can’t trust him. Or his twin. Or their… Ayten and Zaykash. Treacherous bastards! Avoid Shorato and Aspermere…”_ **

Anything else that Sirrus may have had to say was cut off by static before finally, the linking panel went black again. Closing the book, Roger turned to the others and said, “Well, that was interesting.”

Nodding, Harry said, “We’ve got two more names now. Ayten and Zaykash. Their relation to Kyran and Tyran was cut off by static, but as Atrus mentioned that the twins were on their honeymoon, I’m going to assume that Ayten and Zaykash are their spouses.”

“Yes, that would make sense,” Roger said. “Sirrus said ‘their’ and then static, before their names. So we don’t know if they’re the twins' wives or husbands, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

“He also mentioned what I’m assuming is another age,” Blaise said. “Aspermere. Haven’t seen a linking book for that age or a journal. We know Shorato is where they spent their honeymoon. Maybe Aspermere is where they planned to live after their honeymoon?”

“Maybe,” Cedric said. “Well, let’s see what Achenar has to say, shall we?”

Everyone nodded as Cedric took the blue page from Harry and moved over to stand in front of the Haven book. Roger, Harry, and Blaise stood off to one side so that Achenar would only see Cedric and not them. He nodded at the thumbs up from his lovers, before opening the book and replacing the page.

After it reconnected, the linking panel came to life with blue static, as Achenar appeared and began speaking.

**_You are back! Good! … still more blue pages you've brought for me … bring more, I must have some more … that's all I ask of you … long... been so long since my brother, Sirrus, wrongfully imprisoned me within this book.”_ **

**_“Stupid scheming … pretty speech has been … greed which is endless … should be perfectly obvious to you that … he has done evil and he has destroyed all but four… Do not bring the red pages to him. You must not let him trick you … he tricked our father … hideously murdered our father. He'll trick you, he'll murder you… Don't touch the red pages … beg you to bring the blue pages! …en to me!”_ **

**_“Listen! Avoid Shorato… Aspermere… My treacherous baby brothers… and… husbands… murdered our mother… You must obey me!… The blue pages are my only hope! You must help me, you must help me.”_ **

“Whoa,” Cedric said, as the linking page was covered in static for a moment before it faded to black and he closed the book. “So, according to Achenar, Sirrus killed Atrus.”

“And the twins and their husbands,” Roger added, “Ayten and Zaykash I’m assuming, allegedly killed Catherine.”

“I’m not really sure that I trust anything Achenar says,” Harry said. “I mean, I won’t dispute that Sirrus does indeed seem like he could be greedy… the décor in his rooms must have cost a boatload of money. But, from what I’ve seen and heard, Achenar definitely seems to be the more unstable of the two.”

Thinking back to the bottles of poison and ribcage light in Stoneship, Blaise said, “Yeah, um, Sirrus at least doesn’t decorate his rooms with bones. Of the two, I’d definitely say that I trust Sirrus more than I do Achenar right now.”

Nodding, Cedric said, “True. I mean for all we know, that ribcage in Achenar’s room could be Atrus or Catherine… Even if it isn’t, it doesn’t really cast him in the best of light.”

“Well, until we get more pages, we won’t know,” Roger said. “So, shall we check the book?”

Unsurprisingly, Roger didn’t even wait for the other three to nod, as he moved over to where they’d left the puzzle book. Opening it, Roger said, “The pages are still a bit charred, but the spell did work to a certain extent.”

“Really? Any clues to what those puzzles are?” Harry asked.

“Some of them are labeled,” Roger said, as he flipped through the pages. “Of course, the labels are written in D’ni.”

Pulling out parchments, a quill, and ink from his bag, Cedric said, “Well, let’s see if we can translate them then, shall we?”

Roger nodded, even as Blaise took out his wand and transfigured some of the burned books into four comfortable armchairs positioned around a circular table.

Seeing the look on Roger’s face at this, Blaise said, “Relax, Rog. My transfigurations are temporary and I only used burned journals, not burned linking books. So there’s no need to worry about my transfigurations possibly messing them up… at least no more than being burned already did.”

Roger sighed, but nodded, as the four of them sat down around the table. Taking out his Everfull quill before Cedric could unscrew the lid on his ink bottle, Roger said, “Here, we can use this.”

“Much better,” Cedric said, as he put his quill and ink away, and the four of them began flipping through the book and copying down the labeled patterns, before translating the D’ni labels.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there’s Ch8 of ‘Journey into the Ages.’ So with this Stoneship is wrapped up and the boys have learned some new and interesting information, with more to come. For those of you familiar with Myst, I think I’ll have them explore the Selenitic Age next and save the Mechanical Age for last.
> 
> Of course, even once those two Ages are explored there are still more Ages… Rime, Shorato, Aspermere, Riven… and plenty of others. While in-game, some of the burned books in the library are probably thick enough, judging by the width of their spines, to be descriptive books, remember that I changed things up in an earlier chapter. Only Atrus’s journals and various linking books are stored in the main library on Myst Island.
> 
> It just seems to me that it would be way too irresponsible of Atrus to store the far more important descriptive books basically out in the open in a building that doesn’t even have a door. So, those books still exist in a far more secure location and Atrus can very likely write new linking books for them. So, in time, I may have Harry and company explore a few Ages that are only mentioned but never seen in any of the games.
> 
> And, of course, eventually, they’ll get back to Earth, Scotland, and Hogwarts to deal with Umbitch once and for all.


End file.
